A Man with no Mother
by an-earl
Summary: 'He had taken on twice the number of enemies than intended. Like how he had exerted more chakra than intended. Or like the fact that he'd had to use 2 more chidoris' than intended.But who cares? There wasn't much more he could do to himself now.' Kakashi is injured and he hobbles to his sensei's doorstep. But it isn't Minato that opens the door.
1. A man with no mother

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything related to the Naruto series, and this has no affiliation with Kishimoto or related publishing companies. Please enjoy the fanwork.

* * *

 **A Man with no Mother.**

THUD.

"Guh"

He'd landed more heavily than he'd intended. Just like how he had taken on twice the number of enemies than intended. Or just like how he had exerted more chakra than intended. Or the fact that he'd had to use up 2 more chidoris' than intended.

 _But who cares?_ There wasn't much more he could do to himself now. Heaving himself to his feet, the man clambered over to an apartment door. Leaving a trail of crimson in his wake. His breathing was shallow, and he struggled even to remain in his, seemingly temporary, upright position. Supporting himself upon the door frame, he knocked on the door. Cringing when his knuckles came back cleaner, and the door was spotted with red.

The man had used his long trek back to Konoha to conjure up a dozen excuses and explanations for his less than dashing state, a thousand more apologies, and a list of ways to make up for suddenly dropping in on a Sunday morning. _How rude of me. But oh well, it cant be helped._ His mind was blurry, and he'd lost a bit of blood. Not really knowing what he was doing, he'd started heading towards the only one who _did care._

He hated hospitals. Hospitals and those never ending stretches of glaring, white hallways and identical, white rooms; doctors, and nurses, and patients all donned in that _kami-forsaken,_ meticulous white. A delirium-inducing, white ceiling that he'd been forced to stare at for days and weeks on end before. Like looking at a funeral procession. He didn't want to deal with it at all. He didn't want to deal with people in general. But Namikaze Minato was not 'people.'

As the door swung open, Hatake Kakashi dipped his head in some attempt to bow, his side still clinging to the wall for support. Bending forward as low as he could, no matter how much pain he was in.

Bracing himself to face his sensei's unimpressed glare, he tilted his head of silver in greeting. What he did not expect was the horrified face of a woman. The man almost recoiled. Instead of his Minato-sensei, Kakashi stood before the wide-eyed and staring face of Uzumaki Kushina. Next to her flame-coloured hair and propped-open mouth, the first thing he noticed was her dainty, green apron. _Honestly, how stupendous could I get? Just to assume that Sensei would even be home. Baka. Bakaa!_

"Ka! Kakashi?" She blurted out after a moment's shock. "Wha—" But he cut her off. " —Forgive me, Kushina-dono, how dare I intrude on you. I shall take my leave now, please excuse my rudeness." He'd meant to turn and leave. Instead, he whipped around many more times faster than his body could handle in that battered and bruised state, and he buckled under his own weight. "Geh"

Almost immediately, Kakashi felt a pair of hands catching him, and Uzumaki Kushina wrapped his arms over her neck. "And where the hell do you think you are going? Kakashi-kun? Don't answer that, actually. If the answer wasn't going to be —hospital—, then you'd better rethink your career choice. Pick a nice headstone for yourself, you know" She heaved him forward, making sure he wasn't about to knock his head on the doorframe. "Oi, just lean on me." Kakashi blinked, struggling to fight a blush. At least there was still a mask to hide most of it. "Hey now, do as your told— unless you want me to carry you in eh?"

"Hai, Kushina-dono."

And he let his weight fall onto his Sensei's wife, who guided him into the house.

* * *

Left alone on the couch, Kakashi screwed himself up: sitting tightly upright in every attempt to not dirty Minato-sensei and Kushina-dono's house. Risking a look up as Kushina fumbled around for a first aid kit, Kakashi shuddered- his eyes twitching as they fell on a trail of red over the once-immaculate floorboards. Cursing at his clumsiness in his head, he let a wave of guilt wash over him, but said nothing.

His breathing was easing, and his hands were still shaking, but he was thankful that he was at least past that stage where he was gasping for breath, or his right eye blurring him in spasms. Blood continued to stain his clothes…and into the couch. Dry blood had begun to flake on the wound on his head, and it stood out starkly against his silvery hair, loose-hanging. He'd no idea of the splatter of red which stained his mask, nor the fragment of shrunken still embedded in a shoulder blade.

Suddenly, he felt utterly unwelcome where he sat. He was meant to be ANBU. His blade was still wet and rusting in its sheath. He was a grubby, bloody disgrace—but the battle fought not-so-long-ago was so _distant_ , and so out of place in the Namikaze household. It was still too fresh in his mind. But no matter where he went, it would make no difference. He chose this life. Chose to serve his village, and alienate himself from it to do so. This was the fate of the ANBU, and Kakashi knew this better than anyone. This was his life. Yet he sat in some civilised manner, trying not to move his broken bones, trying not to breathe too hard, trying not to bleed all over Minato-sensei and Kushina-dono's nice, plush couch.

Kushina hurried into the living room, her hands hot from clutching onto the first aid kit. "Got it! Here, finally!" And before Kakashi could dispute, she swooped down on him with a wet towel. "Kushina-dono…Kushina-dono, please, I can do this myself…"

Eyeing the silver-haired ninja—boy—as far as she was concerned, Kushina lifted a brow, contemptuous, "Oh, yeah—you can? I suppose you said that to whatever reinforcements you refused?" Kakashi was taken aback. But she went quiet, her eyes darkening, voice quivering. "Don't— you can hardly lift your arm, Kakashi-kun."

"You think I'm a civilian? Kakashi-kun? Blood doesn't faze me. Ive seen a lot of it, you know, in a world war. Blind? I'm no medic-nin, but I know a dislocated bone and a borderline anaemic when I see one. I'm the best you've got right now."

" Kushina-dono…"

He was horrified at the thought of having her treat him. His mind flit to his own reflection in the mirror, a myriad of scars streaking across his body. There were so _many_. He gulped dryly, wondering how the new ones looked: flesh dug-out, skin peeled. So many _scars_.

"Kakashi-kun, please." Her voice was soft- an air of concern and worry seeped into it.

"Hai. Kushina-dono." Kakashi removed his uniform. Bowing his head, he revealed the numerous gashes raked across his body, many still raw and bleeding. "Sorry about your couch, Kushina-dono."

She smiled sadly, squeezing his gloved hand. To his surprise, Kushina quickly folded a square cloth in half, making a triangle, and tied it snugly over his uncovered face. Taking care not to hurt him, she began to dabb at his wounds, patching him over: focusing on stopping blood loss as a priority. Watching him flinch his eyes closed at the pain. Thinking back to the times Minato had stumbled into her apartment, before they were married. Him smiling brightly with an arrow in his back. Her performing CPR on him in the late hours of the night. _How romantic_. Master and student were certainly a pair. _A pair of idiots_ , she thought.

"Honestly, Kakashi-kun, what the hell were you thinking? Just how many chidoris' _can_ you use? I'll tell you— four. How many _did_ you use? 81? Only a baka like you— you and Minato, that is— would not call for back up like a normal, functioning person. Honestly—" With a sudden surge of chakra, she pulled the shuriken splint from his back.

" Guh-ah—"

"Ah— You know what? You deserved that. Geugh. Getting yourself beat up like this."

" Kushina-dono…I'm sorry. I've disgraced you. I'm sorry." Her stern-ness melted, and she lay a hand on his shoulder.

"Baka, Kakashi." She frowned, glaring at his lowered head. Suddenly, Kushina pulled him into an embrace, arms holding him with fragility. Kakashi gasped quietly. Deciding that embarrassing himself with his trembling hands was worth hugging her back—he forgot his _place_ for a moment, how inappropriate this was. Red hair draped over his covered wounds. And he dug his chin into her back.

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Kushina-dono. I-I'm sorry…Kushina-dono forgive me _please_ …"

" No—Kakashi don't. Whatever you're apologising for— coming for help? The mission? The _kami-damned couch?_ It's not your fault!" Her voice was low now. "None of this is! Just…just… give yourself a break. Give yourself a break, you know? Kakashi…Minato is your sensei. That means I'm your guardian too. I'm going to make sure you don't _neglect yourself like a 10-year-old-child living alone from now on._ Ugh, looking at you makes me want to slap that blonde baka for whatever he's not doing right! Listen here, Kakashi, I'm going to make kami-damned sure you eat your kami-damned greens and get kami-damned eight hours of sleep a night. So you chill. You know. " She pulled back, cupping a hand on his masked face. A pair of mismatched eyes stared back at her in disbelief. Not daring to breathe. " And you don't… _apologise_ again. Ok?"

 _"_ Kushina-dono…" he fell forward again in a bow, holding her hands and making them tremble with his. "Alright. I'm sor—Thank you. Thank you, Kushina-dono."

He rose, laughing weakly, "But none of that is necessary—"

"Don't argue with me, Kakashi."

"Yes Kushina-dono."

Kushina sighed, plopping herself on the couch beside him. And they sat there, smelling the rice burn together.

"Does…does Kushina-dono think… there is any chance that you would _not_ tell Minato-sensei of this?"

Kushina slapped her hand onto the back of his neck.

"In hell, Kakashi-kun."

* * *

 **Glossary:**

-dono: Honorific like -sama. But its very old and feudal-like, not used in modern conversation, and more respectful than - sama or -san. Its equivalent to 'Mi'Lord' or 'Mi'Lady'- though it doesn't always have to implicate nobility- just shows humility and politeness. Kakashi is being super duper respectful here.

Kami: god (so phrases like kami-forsaken and kami-damned were used)

'You know': '(da)ttebane' a trait Kushina uses. Naruto uses the similar ' _(da)ttebayo'_

* * *

 **Writer's Notes**

Thank you, thank you so much for reading ;_;

I just made myself sad...this wasn't supposed to be very long at all...Now I can only imagine Kakashi losing his teacher/father figure, Minato, and only mother figure, Kushina, in the same night...

This was seriously supposed to be more humorous...but I suppose I slipped back into the eternal angst hole.

Sigh. Imagine she left a will for him- cos he's basically family-less, and its like, that old first aid kit that she used on him. And then inside theres a bit of money, the medicines, and a list of stuff to do like- kakashi eat your vegetables, don't forget to brush your teeth, get a minimum of eight hours a sleep a night, don't forget to shower warm, and heres a booklet on self-love. And a note like- I'd have been a great mother to naruto, I had heaps of practice on you!

I wish they'd shown Kushina and Kakashi's relationship in the series a little. Oh well, thats why we have fanfics~

Please review! One or two words would be fantastical! Criticism welcome- I thrive on reviews :) good day!


	2. Hello, honey, I'm home

**Hello, honey, I'm home—Holy, is that Kakashi?**

The early morning wind tousled his chakra into an acute alertness, and he remained that way throughout the entirety of his run—an equally abruptly assigned mission. Streaks of yellow whisked about the village, his presence sharp and brusque— yet too renowned to go unnoticed. As the sun mellowed out after the midday drew out its length, so did his mood, and he slowed down into a saunter. Though not exactly trivial, the mission was a B-rank: not urgent, but for what it's worth, it paid to be Konoha's famed yellow flash. He'd report tomorrow.

And he simply walked the rest of the way home, blue eyes blank without a thought to mull over. Spirit content over the certainty of being greeted with Kushina's pretty red hair in his hot meal, Namikaze Minato didn't bother climbing the hundred steps, and focused his chakra onto the kanji-unscripted kunai stuck outside a window.

Then, without so much as a puff of smoke, Minato was there on the cobbled path, until he was not.

A gush of wind rattled the window sill, and the streak of blonde blurred before sharply setting into focus. Minato stepped off the sill, about to call out to Kushina. But surprise flit though his senses, and he stopped himself. Kushina's voice came droning from the kitchen. _Huh? Do we have guests? Maah, she could'a sent me a hawk…I'm dressed in a layer of dust…_

* * *

 _"…_ and so, I took the initiative, of course."

" You…talked him down like a responsible ninja?"

" Close! You're getting better at this. I nailed him in the face."

"Ah—" Kakashi smirked, much more impressed by the latter reveal.

" Nobody talks dirt to me about what they don't even know. Ok, don't get the wrong impression—I don't go around socking morons in the face, I've got hobbies, you know."

"But…he deserved it"

"—He _deserved_ it! Jerk! Hand that bowl over."

Kakashi did as he was told, mouth busy crunching down on mildly burnt rice. Kushina was stirring tomato soup, quickly scooping a portion out to sniff it. She pulled back animatedly, and bobbed her head in dramatic approval. Kakashi breathed out forcefully, stifling a chuckle. "Smells great. Best meal I've had in a long time."

Kushina drooped her lips, turning around. "You're literally eating burnt rice."

"Tastes better than food pills." And he stopped with a mouthful, realising what he had just said. _Well now, why don't you just project all your petty problems on Kushina-dono. Whine a little while you're at it?_

But Kushina intercepted before he could berate himself out loud.

"Ehh—I'll show you some real food the next time you come around. _Rice and tomato-water._ Can't have you thinking I cook worse than your sensei." She slammed a pair of chopsticks down on the table.

"What an embarrassment."

Kakashi hiccuped, and chocked down his rice.

"What? Ok, that's horrific, but you're the one who insisted on eating that, you know."

"Ngh—no, Kushina-dono. It's just… I've been on week-long missions with sensei before. His cooking is…eccentric…and.."

" _His cooking is the eighth ninja sin!"_

"—unique.."

A second of silence permeated over the kitchen until the pair broke into a fit of giggles. Kushina waved a hand to cover soup dribbling down her chin, and Kakashi grinned to one side to hide food wedged in his teeth.

"Ppffft-hahahahaha!"

"Ehehehahaha! Sensei couldn't cook to save his life, my life, anybody's—living on food pills is a little more merciful."

A pile of bloody rags were gathered in a corner, the floorboards meticulously clean again; and a polished dagger and short sword were stacked next to a raggedy ANBU uniform. Kakashi was clothed in one of Minato's navy shirts— a little bit spacious on his leaner frame.

"Don't… don't tell him I said that? Kushina-dono? Please don't."

"Tell me? What?"

A tinge of blonde hair rounded the kitchen, blue eyes swimming suspiciously between the two lunch-eaters. _Wait. Was. Was that Kakashi?_ Kakashi swivelled around, startled into alertness by the all-too-familiar voice. _In my shirt?_ Jumping to his feet a little too aggressively, the ANBU fumbled over to greet his superior; shoulders spasming at the thud of the chair behind him.

"Mina—" The ANBU choked out. But his salute was interrupted by a hideous retching, his words muffled by a tough mouthful of food. He swallowed forcefully, not taking into account the charred-rough rice. It cleaved down his throat, taking a layer of cells with it too. As he edged forward, Kakashi threw up his arms, hastily fastening the blood-spotted cloth to cover his face. _Cover the shame._ In a deft movement, he slammed one knee into the floor, and bowed rigidly.

"Minato-sensei."

The flurry of calculations from before came flooding back in frenzy, and Kakashi wondered how best to explain things. His throat was burning. He shouldn't have involved Kushina-dono with anything to do with him. The things he did kept grown ninja up at night—too ugly to speak of in their sun-bathed kitchen. His mission squirmed back to haunt him; and so did the relief he felt, knowing Kushina could never see how he got those scars she just sealed, the bone she just set.

Minato would be appalled. Kakashi scrunched up his fists. _After all, his wife had welcomed a killer into her house._

"Minato-sensei, please, I take all responsibility for this. I'm sorry. Fraternising with civilians… _Kushina-dono…_ neglecting my mission report… revealing my identity and, and appearance…I know it's all strictly against regulation."

Minato stared down, blinking awkwardly between Kushina and his former student.

"Kakashi what the hell?" He reached down to pull him up by the shoulder.

"Anata—DON'T!"

"—Guuh!"

"Kakashi-kun!"

Minato whipped his arm back, fear welling up his spine. The material of Kakashi's makeshift mask just barely covered his face, and Minato's eyes fell on the ancient kanji scrawling up his neck, over his collar bone, stretching out wide to the shoulder he just grasped. _Those…those were a lot of medical seals._ They were temporary skin-knitting seals, obviously performed by Kushina. He sighed quickly, and it came out like a gasp. _Thank Kami Kushina was home to save him— haah!_

A peace may have settled in Konoha, but his senses were still keen, and Minato could smell the slight scent of blood. His eyes fell on the array of dirty rags in the corner, and the punctures across that battered ANBU uniform.

"Holy! Holy hell! Gueegh! Minato what in the sage of six paths' name are you teaching him? Kakashi, get up."

Minato held out his hand and Kakashi obliged.

"C'mon Kakashi, up."

* * *

'Kushina' spellchecks to 'cushion'

'Minato' sometimes to 'minute'

and Kakashi, when I spell it fast like kakshi, spellchecks to 'cacti' ._.

* * *

Okie Chapter two!

I originally imagined Kakashi as in his 20's in chapter 1, thus 'man.' But when you think about, that doesn't make sense, he's probably only in his late teens at the most :O

You know, 'A man with no mother' was meant to be a one-shot, but it was my fault for not showing it to be 'completed,' and 2 requests is a holy lot to me. So here you go! At the moment I've no idea what I'm doing, so this is a carry-on from the last chapter. I know, cliches! Sorry. I don't want to change the title though, Kushina is important.

For now this is going to be slice-of-lifey until I can get some direction and action in there.

Thanks!

-earl


	3. What is this teenage rebellion?

**What is this teenage rebellion?— Stop hating yourself.**

They sat at the breakfast table, bowls of soup laid out before them; Kushina and Minato on one side, and Kakashi on the other. Minato lapped absent-mindedly at the soup, suddenly realising Kakashi's obvious attempts at eye-averting—with that one eye of his. He thought back to the glimpse of face the ANBU was so intent on covering.

"Sorry, Kakashi…heh, you look so different now. I mean—I haven't…actually seen your face since…since you were a child." He said, admittedly. He frowned. _That sounded terrible out loud._ Kushina pinched his thigh, and Minato buckled, kicking the table slightly.

"Hnn…Kakashi? Please eat? It's fine."

"It's strictly against code."

Except he'd been breaking code all morning; from the moment he decided bleeding out a little was preferable to going to the hospital. Did he really care about the damned code? Not since he had two matching eyes. But his shame held him back.

At this, Kushina slurped her bowl clean, loudly. "Kakashi, where are you right now?"

"I…ano…Minato-sensei and Kushina-dono's..home?"

"Yeah?! Fancy that—NOT inside some dark lair where the higher ups' keep their super soldiers!"

"Kushina—" Minato quelled.

He had tossed aside his jacket and forehead protector; trying to ease the knife-sharp intensity in the room with a feigned air of casual-ness. After the morning's run, Minato felt somehow foreign in his own home: like he'd just waltzed in uninvited into a stranger's idyllic lunch. His brow creased, consternation falling on his features. He'd just caught the trace of a smile on Kakashi's face, heard _laughter_ from round the corner.

He wanted to smile. _One morning with Kushina would do that to you._ But he could only frown. This news was more surprising than the multiple lacerations that bought Kakashi here. The moment Minato lumbered in, Kakashi withdrew, going so far as to retract all his chakra and conceal all those _pesky_ emotions he let loose. The cheeriness in his aura dissipated as sudden as a flame being blown out. _So we're back to this._ Minato blew out the flame, and it was driving Kushina crazy.

"Just, Kakashi, I suppose the ANBU are a little more serious, but literally no one takes the code as life or death."

 _"_ _Not since you were born."_ He heard Kushina utter quietly.

"Er, You don't see me speaking _exclusively_ in sign or, or cutting my hair or wearing a ma-aaaaask" He finished, flinching at his mistake. "But that's besides the point. That stuff was written over a century ago."

The boy from before was miles within himself. Kushina rolled her eyes, and set them on Kakashi. "Kakashi-kun, you're here- now. You're under our roof, under our rules, you know. Now, eat your food?"

Minato slurped on his soup, eyes peeking up at Kakashi—giving him an 'I'll-do-as-she-says' look from above the bowl.

"Hai, Kushina-dono."

The tremor in his hands looked as if it had subsided, but the tell-tale signs of the shaking ends of fabric said otherwise. Kakashi tentatively took off the make-shift mask again, and busied himself with a few slurps of food.

* * *

Kushina eyed the both of them sternly, eyes contemplating what to do. What to say. The lacklustre spirit that had taken ahold of her and the bloody young man, had vanished, and she wanted to blame Minato—Minato and his lack of foresight to _knock_ and use the _front door_. But she knew that wasn't it. There was a tension between the two, and Minato moved in that carefully suppressed grace that screamed of _don't screw up, don't screw it for yourself- lest you want a wooden log in your kitchen and your student's—ex-student's—next visit to be at your funeral._

She clasped onto the bowl until her knuckles went white. She knew, basically, from Minato's flinching awake in their sleep to cry about war; the war that spat out the famous and infamous Yellow Flash, Sharingan-no-Kakashi; and provided two less to eat tomato soup and burnt rice. Once, there were three children at this table, and now there were none. Minato muttered their names in his birthday prayers each year, so she did too; imagining one without an eye, and one without a heart.

Kushina pressed her hand into Minato's back and rose from the table. After all this time, after all those voices that slurred his name with a contempt— _little ol' Sharingan-no-kakashi, of course the traitor's boy has stolen powers—_ there was a fear amassed in the ever-growing whisper of C _opy-nin Kakashi._ And he called her Kushina-' _dono.'_

Had he fallen from grace, or risen to it? She couldn't tell. The younger ninja, and the even _younger_ ninja, regarded his name like folklore as they did Minato's as legend. But Copy-nin Kakashi was real, and he was watching his soup grow cold.

After everything that she'd have slept better without knowing, Kushina knew that when Kakashi clambered over to her doorstep—half-drugged up to keep himself awake, and delirious from blood loss, his first instinct was to find to his Minato-sensei. _Master and student were certainly a pair._ These two needed to kami-damned talk, and she packed away her dishes after giving one last, obvious nod to Minato. However it was between them.

 _Talk._

The ANBU's one eye widened as she turned to walk away. He'd come looking for Minato, but now that he was here, he didn't want to be left alone with the man that was once his master.

* * *

The Yellow Flash ate sullenly for a while, remembering how everything was so much easier before—those 6am training sessions that made him boast of the genius he was proud of. Telling Kushina what a power he was, how much of a fight he'd have to put up against him. Telling her how sad it was as he grew up, and grew distant. Their hour-long chats when he came for advice, or a simple talk, or someone to talk _at,_ seemed an era away.

He looked up. The scar on his eye was raw for the longest time, he remembered. Still bleeding months after, making him cry tears of blood. But that was years ago, too. It had scabbed over, finally, and now it was much darker, thinner than he remembered. His eyes drooped. _God—it's been so long since I've seen you, Kakashi. What are they doing to you in the ANBU these days?_

Minato cringed into his food. The ninja had being avoiding him these past few months. But why? He chuckled inwardly. It's not like he was any cleaner than him. What in the hell was up with the boy—er—man? Teenager? He'd literally seen him rip tens of men in half. He'd sent Kakashi away when he needed to off his opponents in a less _graceful_ way. Yes, he's some kind of a hero in the light—but Kakashi saw himself as a nuisance for the same thing in the dark.

Minato shifted his eyes suspiciously, trying not to stare at his former-student. _Ha. Now who is it trying to do chronic eye-averting?_ It was stupid, and probably rude, he realised, but Minato hadn't seen his face since he was so _young._ He'd grown up now, grown up too fast and more weary than Minato had ever been at that age. Nothing had being fair for him.

The war was over, but the things it did to him happened only yesterday in his eye.

"Kakashi."

"Hai, sensei."

"You'll aways be welcome here. You know that, right?"

"I know."

Minato smiled.

"…I shouldn't be, but I know."

He faltered. This time, anger welled up inside him. Minato stood, knocking his chair over. "Don't say that. Don't ever say that again. Kuso! Kakashi. Why do you….listen, Kakashi, I care about you. Ok? I care a holy-lot about you."

Kakashi raised his brows, mimicking what he once did at the start of one of his sensei's ol' lectures. But it wasn't like that, this time. _I know. That's why I've being doing it._

"I thought you _hated_ me. You've being skipping entire blocks to avoid me, so I let you. And no, no no, I don't blame you, what happened to us, _everything after Kannabi bridge_ ," He paused a moment, surprised that he said it out loud. _Kannabi bridge._ Nightmare campaign. And the first _victory_ the Yellow Flash's name would be forever tied to. His stomach turned.

"K… _Kannabi bridge_ —it's all on me. But what you're doing to yourself—stop it. It's not fair for you. Don't treat yourself so bad. You can hate me. Heh. What kind of a sensei lets half his team die, anyway?" He smiled sourly.

A silence came over him, and he had said what he wanted to. Minato turned to lean his right side on the wall _. Why was it that the fastest ninja in the world was so goddamned slow? Too slow, too slow, to save his own team. Right—'team.' Ha, ha. They were only children._

Kakashi looked on in a flustered confusion, balking at his words. There was rebuttal in his eye, a million counter-arguments that he couldn't voice out loud to finish within the week.

"Minato-sensei—no, none of that is remotely true! It wasn't your fault. None of that could be helped. No one can control something like that."

"Then don't blame yourself."

"…"

They went silent, embarrassed; their outbursts sounding were like children bickering—except it was about death. The soups grew cold between them.

"Nothing will make me think less of you, Kakashi. Nothing. I've…I've been keeping tabs on you. After you stopped talking to me. Sorry. You took on an S-rank mission last week. You single-handedly stopped a small village going into a civil war…in the wave country."

"It…sounds flattering when you put it that way."

"That was one mission. One mission that saved hundreds? Hundreds of thousands?"  
"I, suppose, sensei."

"Every one of those people are able to be breathing, eating tomato soup, and beating themselves up like a certain _someone_ — all because of you. One mission, Kakashi.

"…"

His voice went quiet.

"That's why you joined the ANBU right? So you could do all the dirt-missions the _smart ninja_ won't do? And you still find your life worth nothing?"

"…"

"Screw the missions, geez! Mission or no damned mission, I find you worth _everything._ "

He paused, near exasperated.

"Sensei." Kakashi sighed out. "I've avoided you for so long. You didn't deserve that. I've spent so much, trying to make sure there won't ever be another Obito or Rin."

He swallowed hard, nails digging into palms. "Trying to make up for _Kannabi bridge and after that_. I didn't want to see you. Nothing's the same anymore…now you just, remind me too much of the better times."

 _And I don't deserve it. I'm afraid._

Kakashi looked to Minato, feeling the need to focus both eyes on his reaction. _He has to know._ "Hate has never crossed my mind. Never."

It was Minato's time to stare, and he did it blatantly, taking in all the emotion in Kakashi's face, looking at him like he had just discovered the one thing missing in his life. "The thing about 'better times,' is that it's not just in the past. Things will get better, Kakashi. Things always get better."

Minato smiled again, hoping against everything that he wasn't lying. He'll believe it too. Even if just so Kakashi could.

They sat there together for a while, hearts a ton lighter, consciences a little clearer; wondering what the hell took them so long to get here. 'Here' was where Kakashi could finally look him in the eye and Minato could almost laugh. They never needed to forgive each other, only themselves. A warmth emanated from Kakashi, and he was happy that the thing that hurt most was, in fact, the throb on his shoulder.

* * *

"So, what is it? Is it the chidori? Because that jutsu needs to be built up bit by bit—element manipulation, it's too exhausting."

"Huh?"

"The reason you're so beat up—you know you have a reputation to save now, right?"

He dipped his head to sigh, tousling a fringe of silver over.

"Yeah. I drained myself with five. I can only produce four? Say what you want, Kushina-dono has probably said it thrice over…"

Minato suddenly cocked his head over his right, shoulders becoming haunched and suspicious.

"Minato-sensei?"

"Open your eye, Kakashi. The red one."

Kakashi blinked two eyes open, the sharingan spinning in confusion. But he tensed up as Minato did, sensing his chakra flare throughout his body. "Alright, Kushina's in the other room. And please don't tell her I showed you this…"

He didn't wait for Kakashi to nod, but unfurled his hands onto the table, left palm clutching onto right wrist. With a sharp intake of breath, he summoned forth a power that revolved in an instant, lighting them both up in a blue glow. The air in the room swivelled, and Kakashi watched mesmerised at the archaic sphere of energy; seeing it grow, and swirl, and curl inwards back into itself. It hovered quaintly in the palm of his hand. Like looking into into a rushing whirlpool, except the waves were made of chakra; and they rolled with a momentum that was dizzying to behold.

Kakashi stood up suddenly, mouth parting at the majesty. He could feel the power, and the sharingan spun as the jutsu did, taking in the form and feel: every slight slip of energy, every twist in the chakra mapped in his mind. But soon, something jolted within in, and the perfect sphere straggled apart, sending a current reverberating through the room, blowing back their hair. It was gone like an exhale of breath.

"Phew. Sorry. I can usually hold it better, and longer, but I got nervous doing it in the house."

"It's a new jutsu."

"Yeah, what do you think?"

"It's beautiful." He answered, a little surprised at the word, but he didn't correct it. Minato smiled, grinning wryly. "That's what Kushina said so too."

"Since when?" Kakashi asked, a new awe in his voice.

"I'm not anywhere up to your level with your chidori invention," Minato mused, skirting a hand through his hair, "took me years. That's the furtherest I've got. Did you catch how I did it?"

"Chakra manipulation. In its purest. You compressed that amount of energy into a viable form…that's a lot of control…" Kakashi looked up. "Sensei—that's an A-rank jutsu at the very least."

Minato's soft smile widened into a beam.

"One demonstration and you've got it already, heh heh he ha! It's not gonna take you _years and years_ to get this." He chuckled proudly.

"Me?"

"Some incentive for you to come over—you know— other than when you're beat up bloody. I'll teach it to you. The Rasengan."

 _"_ _Rasengan."_ He breathed.

Things were going to get better. Just hours ago, he was blinking back bloody tears. Now he was full of Kushina-donos' soup, his wounds sealed, and Minato was his sensei again. The broken bridge in his mind blurred a little more into the distance. "Minato-sensei. I'll be honoured to learn the rasengan from you. Thank you." The deepest gratitude he knew was to bow, but he resisted the urge. Minato hated over-formality and it didn't feel right, this time. A genuine smiled filled his face, and it was like he had taken back the years he had lost, actually looking like his age.

"I'll do the dishes, sensei. I need to thank Kushina-dono for the meal too."

* * *

Deleted/Alternate line:

"The thing about 'better times,' is that it's not just in the past. Things will get better, Kakashi. Things always get better." Minato smiled again, hoping against everything that he wasn't lying. "Believe it."

* * *

I'm sorry about that guys, I read it over and that was all I could think of ^

Rac 95- you're fab

Prescripto13- all my gratitude, you always come to the rescue with reviews, you mean a lot

Vitalum Vitalis- ta! very 'asap' right? you rule, thankie

RockingTheGraveyard- dayum, thx you followed at the exact right time XD

kakashifan7- yay!

And a warm, warm thank you! to everyone else.

* * *

Notes:

I'm sorry this last chapter kinda completely deviated from the original one shot. Instead of the Kakashi-Kushina dynamic, I went full Minato-Kakashi. The thing is, look what Kakashi went through after losing Obito and Rin. There is no way Minato walked away from that without a scratch. In the fic, Kakashi and Minato went their separate ways a while after the war, holding all sorts of grudges and demons until their reunion here. They actually confront what was keeping them apart. Grief does strange things to people.

But yea, everything I write is super-indulgent...hee

So after this, they're cool again, and Minato is crowned Hokage and Kakashi gets to work under him again...Ever wondered how Kakashi knew the rasengan? Here's one take on it. At this point, I will probably have to change the synopsis, but eh, later, don't want to confuse people.

I want to write more Kakashi and Kushina scenes, but I will have to leave it as it is for now. Once I get some other priorities out of the way, I'll come back to this.

Truly, Thank you.

-earl


	4. Rabbits in tall grass

Disclaimer: this is in no way affiliated with Maasashi Kishimoto or the Naruto franchise. I have no idea what's really happening with the series anymore. It looks like the new Boruto manga is...not that ok? That I've heard. I dunno, my journey with Naruto really ended with Shippuden. It was a nice end point there~

* * *

Rabbits in tall grass.

The Yellow Flash had been missing for seven days.

Three days was not enough time for anyone in Konoha village, or heck — anyone in the entire nation of fire, the entire shinobi world — to be miffed about. Missions went overtime. Missions went awry. Missions were suspended and abandoned and deemed a lost cause all the time. There were dates assigned to each mission — completion dates and expiry dates, dates and times to determine the exact moment where a mission should have been completed or not. Shinobi either stubbornly tried to finish the job, or turned round and headed home whistling a tune or two.

The yellow flash was not a ninja who dawdled or dithered. The yellow flash did not send home a hawk to his waiting wife, to not show up at the great gates when he'd said he would. If Namikaze Minato had said he'd be somewhere, he'd _be_ somewhere.

Thus, the Yellow Flash had been missing for eight days.

The higher ups of Konoha were doing everything in their power to keep hush about it. Having your golden boy drop off the face of the earth in times like this, wasn't good for publicity.

Wasn't good at all.

Uzumaki Kushina did not give two craps about the press or politics. Of course, Minato was more than capable of taking care of himself. That was why she took the first mission on the list that could get her out of Konoha and into the area near the outskirts of the fire country. She couldn't leave it to randoms when she could go trekking into the wilderness herself, of course.

Shadows began to blink on the ground, weaving in-between the rays of light dotted by the canopy above. A rain of shrunken fell from the sky.

"They're here!"

Shrill voice struck her ears. Kushina slammed into the the Konoha ninja on her right, pushing him to the ground behind a tree.

"Multiple enemies! Stay down!" the other voice shouted.

It was supposed to be a simple mission, one that she could finish in a day and go off track to look for Minato. Who knew what kind of poisoned mushroom he could had eaten? When it came to Minato, who knew the kind of trouble he could get himself into?

A hand grasped her throat then, pinning her to the tree trunk as she got off her team mate. The three of them against what? Multiple enemies?

"Kushina-san!"

His name was Gin. Kushina doubted that was his real name, but hey — the things she's seen, she wasn't about to judge. Gin pulled a kunai out of thin air. In one fell swoop, he stabbed it clean through the arm that had slunk through the trunk and was currently choking out Kushina. She dropped to the floor, gasping once. Gin sliced through the tree-arm.

"Get back to the river, Gin, Kiharu!"

What an absolute joke. Kushina had picked a mission that no one could have logically told her: no. It was a seal job — there was a crack in a dam and before the thing could crumble and cause a flood, a small squad of ninja could get to it in record time and fix it. Kushina was the best sealing-master in the village. She suddenly decided she wanted out of her three-year retirement. How could they possibly say 'yes' to a flooded forest?

Kiharu was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a ninja dressed in full black, head and mouth covered over so that only a slit of eyes showed. Ominous. Nodding at Gin, Kushina neared them, waiting for the mark. Gin's shuriken landed intimately close to the masked-man's temple, shaking him up. Kiharu jolted back in alarm. Kushina slammed her fist into the man's face. They all rocked back, Gin aiming another weapon as Kiharu and Kushina jerked away.

"Run!" Kiharu shouted.

Kushina took her hand and propelled them into the trees.

So it was a chase, then?

"Did you pin down how many enemies there were in the end?" Kiharu said, fixing her forehead protector.

"Hell if I know," Gin called back, "but if that's an illusion, it'll be a damn good one, for sure."

"Not shadow clones," Kushina chimed in, "I shattered that guy's teeth, _for sure_."

They had fixed the dam and left. And then not half-an-hour later, they were being chased like rabbits in tall grass, in their own country.

"Ok, if anybody touched a random shrine or whatever — you better admit right, freakin' now!"

"No, Kushina."

"Naw, Kushina."

"Hn."

So they were just being chased for the fun of it, she concluded. _Kami,_ she missed retirement.

"Listen," she said, tone a note lower, "we're not going back to the dam. We're going to make a kami-damned distress call and—"

"KUSHINA!" It was Gin who pushed her away this time, catching the full force of a katon blast.

Kushina's mouth parted as she fell.

Gin's scorched body poofed away by substitution jutsu.

Kushina's mouth frowned as she fell.

She batted away Kiharu's hand as she tried to catch her. With a great thud, she landed in the dirt, spiderwebbing the ground with minuscule ravines. "Get Gin and run," she said to her.

Gin appeared at their side, clutching onto a burn wound. The sear of his flesh sent a putrid smell up her nose.

"I can still _fight,_ " he said accusatorially.

 _"I can still fight,"_ she mimicked, a little too mockingly. She knew she was being harsh, but the rest of her team had only just made jonin for two weeks or so. These fledgling jonin flew through the ranks and did not know war. Kushina flinched as she threw a shuriken, making it fly weakly through the sky and land at an enemy's feet. She wasn't making a great impression of herself.

"Keep moving."

She flinched. This was not a war. Why was she acting as though every fight thereafter the big one should be treated as so? Her lips thinned into a tight, surly line. They were still outnumbered; they were still undermanned. This was supposed to be sealing-mission, (with a side of search and rescue) for goodness' sake.

She stopped suddenly, making her teammates skid to a dusty stop in front as she whirled around. A kunai swept through the distance, cutting a snick on the side of her chin. She didn't flinch at it as she continued to pool her power, forcing the flow to culminate in her fingers and vibrate the ends of her long, red hair. Then, something like a flash of red _(ha, ha,)_ ignited, and she slammed a palm into a tree, which slammed into another, and another. A row of wood was uprooted, falling in a heap of long logs over the distance. Not bad for an impromptu blockade.

"Might slow them for a second, let's go." Then she froze, eyes widening as a thought flew into her mind.

"Kushina-san?"

"We're splitting up."

"What?" Kiharu eyed Gin suspiciously.

"Why are you eyeing me? She's the one who came up with the—"

"Whose shrine did you touch?! What kind of artefact did you steal?!" Kiharu fumed at Gin.

"I _didn't—_ "

Kushina slammed her hand into Gin's back, pushing him to collapse into Kiharu. She dabbed a spot of blood from the cut by her chin in the time they fell, pressing a thumbprint into the tree next to them.

 _"Seal."_

The Konoha ninja balked and scrambled to their feet. The second Gin tried to take a step towards Kushina, he was forced back. Kiharu caught his back, grunting. "What did you do to us, Kushina-san?!"

She was right to be accusatory. "You're both too smart to listen to me and split up," Kushina sighed, tilting her head back to the makeshift fort of tree trunks.

"Haven't you noticed?" she said, cautiously, for the first time since the mission had started. Kiharu and Gin looked like crap, but now a squirming, squeezing fear had crept into the light in their eyes, putting out the flame in them.

"They're not coming for you. They're after me." Kushina waved her hands up, tightened the knot of red hair on her head and faced away from them. "And if they're after me, then they know who I am."

Kiharu bashed a fist against the strange peripheries of the open air. Her hand touched upon thin air, to thick air, and she gritted her teeth at the invisible seal. They were trapped.

"You're trapped, but it's ok," Kushina piped up. "You'll be fine. It'll wear off in an hour or so, so head back to the village after that. We finished the mission anyway, so there's nothing to worry about."

"You're getting chased by an army of ninja!"

"You can skip out all the little details in the mission, Gin. Everybody does it, " she smiled.

The make-shift fort was blown apart. All around her was the sound of splintering wood and fire. Kushina leapt away, jerking right. The black-clad ninja all twisted and followed. She smiled. Great. They really were just going to follow her and didn't care about the others.

"Kushina-san!" "Kushina!"

And as their voices drew furtherer and furtherer away, closing like a curtain in the distance, Kushina managed to ignore it until the silence got too loud.

* * *

"What do you want?"

Her words cleaved through her clenched teeth, an octave lower and shaking with hostility. The canopy stretched across her head here, blinking little lights over face as she stared empty over the bare grounds.

"I don't hold any Konoha secrets, just to be blunt." She scoffed, swinging the few stray strands of hair out of the way. "And even if I did," she said, for good measure, "I sure as heck wouldn't tell you."

A figure dropped from above, landing heavily and messily on the ground. Behind her, another thud dropped, breaking the earth beneath his feet. She swivelled, moving her head slowly between them and backing up, trying to keep them in view. The point of a kunai tipped the back of her neck, and she ducked frantically, flinging herself back into the open. Another ninja had appeared, this one swift and silent. A couple of red hairs fluttered to the floor from knife-point. Her eyes narrowed, darkening as the sun passed into cloud. Leaving her cold and clammy. Then, one by one, more ninja clothed in black fell from the treetops or appeared from behind a rock — who knew? (And who cared?) Kushina walked around in a shy circle, laying eyes on each and every one of them.

"Hey," she said, straightening up. "I grew that hair, you know."

The shuffle of feet gave him away. Kushina lurched around, putting fist to face before turning around to struck a knee to the gut, then threw one ninja into another. They all came at her. Fists and feet all prodded in her direction, gripping her shoulder and hammering in the backs of her knees. She yelled, muffling the sound behind her teeth. A ninja on her left — she took a hit at his pressure point, subduing him not a moment too soon to whirl around and take down two more. Kushina looped a finger around one of their kunai, used it to cut free a bag of shuriken before she flung it into an elbow. Which wasn't all that smart, she thought, having to shove the hard part of her palm up a chin. They kept getting up, kept fighting. Then she felt it, sure and sharp as anything, the hot sear of knife on her back. She shifted in reflex. A long gash dragged down her side.

 _"Kkghhn—!"_

Had they decided to kill after using non-lethal attacks, finally?

"I don't know who the hell you are or what the hell you want from me, but I've had enough playing by the rules." Kushina raised her hands to her sides, surging forth her power again.

Slowly, shakily, gold-glowing chains began to emit from her centre, curling and clinking as she forced the forbidden jutsu to materialise. And crinkle. And falter. Her face changed a dozen times in the space of a few seconds — urgency, confusion, anger and finally: acceptance — all glossing over in frenzy. The chains retracted and disintegrated. Kushina tilted her head in a sigh, touching a finger over the scrape by her chin. She cleaned her finger over her tongue, neutral expression over her features.

It was just quaint.

"You've poisoned me." Kushina shuddered, stumbling back a few steps as she dragged the chains back within her. Her chakra wasn't like other peoples'. But now every heavier gasp breath, every shudder from her lungs was blunting her chakra down like wind over rock.

It was sacrilege, letting the same jutsu trap her twice, she thought, as pair of arms manifested from the tree behind her, snagging taut around her neck. Kushina raised her fists, wrenching herself free from the hold. She fumbled forward into her enemies.

The moment she replaced her breath, it was knocked out of here before she could gather herself. She didn't need a warning. Kushina took a kick into her solar plexus, skidded to a stop before another hit came at her. Kushina rocked back again, but this time the slam of rock stopped her skid.

"Where is the Yellow Flash?" One the men finally spoke.

Kushina cracked open her eyes in light disbelief. She only caught a glimpse of a blur as the thug's knuckles caught the hollow space under her cheekbone. She fell to the floor, crumpled. Kushina coughed, politely closing hand over mouth.

"So…you can speak. _Huh._ "

 _Bam._

He threw a punch into her side.

"I don't know where the Yellow Fla-flash is."

 _Bam._

Foot planted into her stomach, stomping out her breath. Kushina gasped for air.

"I just said I don't know!"

 _Bam. Bam._

The leader of them all, Kushina supposed, reached down his arm and pulled her up by the collar. _At least not my hair._ Kushina blinked open an eye and gave her best one-eyed, deadpan look. The masked man drove her into the ground with his fist, making an uncomfortable sound of body-hitting-earth, echo. Her red hair unfurled around her, spilling across the dust as she lifted herself up.

"Look. I don't know where the Yellow Flash is. I don't know where he is right now. I didn't know where he was before we started fighting. I won't know where he is even if you keep bashing me."

Kushina picked up her head, turning to fling a wayward smirk at them all. And then stopped 2/3 of the way as her neck began to cramp. There were about eight men in her line of vision. More behind her. She could feel the stoic-ness of their chakra annoy the 'military' inside her. The war moulded people like that — cold and rigid and the rainbows and butterflies beaten out of them. It had taken a long time to chase that feeling from Minato. She'd done a good job, considering the fact she carried that edge with her wherever she went. Minato was a straight-forward man with straight-forward ideals.

His deadliness came was a completely different from hers. His shone as bright as the sun (and his goddamned hair); Kushina's was borne of secrecy and forbidden jutsu, golden chains that could tear the spirit straight out of people. And without them, and her chakra waning as the drug took affect — she really felt the anger boil under her skin.

Minato was going to _get it_ if she ever got out of this one. And if anyone ever found Minato, that was.

"If you tell me why you want Minato-" she swallowed. Too late to fix the slip. "Look. I want to find the Yellow Flash. You want to find the Yellow flash. That means, _inexplicably_ , we ca—"

 _Bam._

Kushina coiled into herself, hands grabbing at her abdomen as the pain came back in some spreading shockwave. Her mouth flew open, twisting her face in pain even as no sound came out. She bit her tongue. To hell with letting them hear a single sound from her.

"Give up the location of the Yellow Flash." Was that the same voice? Or different? Kushina couldn't tell.

 _Bam. Crk. Bam._

Whites flashed through her mind, blinding her through closed eyes.

 _Oh._ Kushina winced through her scowl. They were _dummies_ , the whole lot. It didn't matter if she didn't know the location. They wouldn't stop badgering so long as they thought she might have had a sliver of information in her. Kushina opened her eyes, watching the man step forward and swipe his foot back, ready to heave into her ribs.

All her thoughts ( how to get out alive, et cetera, ) stagnated as she blanked her mind, bracing for the impact.

* * *

And the zing of a shuriken whizzed by her head, blazing a trail of wind by her hair and fluttering it backwards.

Kushina opened her eyes just in time to see blood pump onto the floor before her — the man that was about to attack her tugging at his leg with a vessel ruptured. He let his blood run, _not good safety practice, really_ — and spun around to see what Kushina was currently raising her brows at.

All that was discernible was a dash of blue and black.

Or an armoured arm whacking downwards above the shoulders, instantly shocking one of them out. But it didn't stop there. There was a slash of the kunai across under the arm, enough to bleed the man out as he fell unconscious.

A jab of wrist on a pressure point, point of a kunai digging into another man's chest. The ninja pulled it out, flinging it forward before bashing the enemy to the ground and moving onto the next.

Tinge of blue uniform, silver hair, and a lean frame a head shorter than the men falling around him like dolls. It was grace and brutality all rolled up into one growth-spurt-in-session ANBU agent, flinging left-right, right-left as he unsheathed the short katana behind him and slashed diagonally. Without reserve, without remorse.

This ninja was precise as he was deadly, and another kind of deadly from her shadowy forbidden jutsu and the daylight-soldier of his master. Something like the burning tip of a match. Small and destructive.

When her ears stopped ringing from the last knuckle to her head, she shook herself, making the dizziness worse as ninja's words blared into focus along with the sound of bones cracking beneath fist. Blood splattering the floor in extravagant distances.

"You want—"

 _Bam, bam, bam_.

"To know where—"

 _Boom, bam, crunch;_ the sound of squeal mincing out of mouth.

"The — Yellow — Flash-"

 _Crack. Bam._

"Is?"

He turned up his fists suddenly, dropping his last pair of kunai in deliberate, jabbing apathy. Terrible, terrible form.

"In — my — _ass."_

Hatake Kakashi bashed his fists into the last man's face, pummelling him. He beat him between consciousness. Until nothing could differentiate him from face and mushed fruit. The battered man dropped to the floor, a seemingly half-satisfied Kakashi looking over the field of bodies he'd sown on the barren grounds. Electricity flickered from his fingers, fizzing and searing in rhythm with the tremor from his hands. As if they were clenching in lightning storms. He shook his hands, furled and unfurled them, forcing the crackling energy to dissipate. It took a long time for them to calm.

Blood trickled down his knuckles. Not his blood. His head drooped. He tentatively turned around, face settled in a tight, soulless, mask-over-mask. Kakashi's one-eyed dead-pan look was _leagues_ better than her's, Kushina thought. An awkward beat. And then Kakashi, in all the stoic rigidity of all of the downed men put together, pulled his ANBU mask to the side.

"Please…" he said quietly, "…please don't tell Minato sensei I said that."

That was the most animated Kushina had ever seen Kakashi be. And it was much more brutal than she might have imagined. She wondered why, when the copy ninja _was_ in the top ranks of the ANBU.

Kushina slumped, heartbeat still unsettled. "I'll have a talk to your sensei about your language next time. _The_ _asshole_."

* * *

Notes.

I'm sorry this took so long. Here you go, Guest. I left it thinking I'll get back to it - but I just had no ideas XD So this is kind of a funny little story now - I actually think the tone changed to go in line with my other Naruto fic - Sakura. I'll try my hardest to update when I can - but just be aware I'm so buuuusy whhhyyyy. Thank you so much for your read! Do let me know your thoughts~ Did you like it? I'm open to criticism.

Until next time then,

\- earl


	5. The Third Person

Hey, take this update!

* * *

 **The Third Person**

Rushing through the wilderness with no sense of utter direction, Kakashi stopped on a whim.

The sound of a (mildly inconvenienced) voice had called out. The wrangle of clothes and limbs reached his ears and he jerkily changed direction. It had taken him a long time to get rid of his squad, and Kakashi could be persuasive. Having fiddled around a couple hours in the woods already, he moved his body before his mind caught up with the speed. Since this was still the fire country, anyone's random scuffle could in fact be his problem.

Through the high canopy, a myriad of black-clothed ninja had cornered someone.

It was a waning, pin pick of a feeling, tugging once on the end of his mind and then settling beneath his skin. In one stark moment of watching foot meet stomach, it festered and grew — groggy, fuming kind of thing reaching up within him until it overcame his bones like mercury flow. His mind glazed over with red. Anger bubbled up, changing his breaths into hot, quick countdowns as his everything went _snap._

Kakashi leapt from his hiding place the second the brute laid another finger on Kushina, silencing two attackers before the rest were even alerted. He was livid, sharingan activated in absolute wrath as he beat them all down with form all over the place, throwing many more punches than was strictly efficient or necessary — and Kakashi was a strict fighter. He wanted to feel their faces split on his knuckles, feel the blood pound of out of their white faces and give back what they'd done to Uzumaki Kushina four-fold.

Or he wouldn't so much as sleep well again.

And he never slept well.

* * *

Kakashi's face fell. Blatantly, it fell — blank, expressionless look weighing down with solemnity as light began to stream over the area, littering Kushina's face with rorschach blots. Through a few, unlucky beams, it illuminated her bruised lip and bloodied nose. Warmth trickled over her mouth, and Kushina opted to wipe it over her sleeve rather than spit. Her hand was still pressed into her side, body slumped in a languid, uncomfortable position.

"Kushina-dono…" Kakashi reached forward, flinching back as electricity still sparked from his fingers.

His voice was shaking. Suppressed anger about to froth at the edges, ready to beat up another batch of the men he just broke. Anger and malice was laced throughout his body, culminating in that red, red eye. Spinning and spinning and spinning. Kushina was about to go dizzy just from looking at it.

"Shut your eye, Kakashi. I'm alright. Just some flesh wounds," Kushina said. Then added, "You know?"

And the fury melted into fear. Kakashi dropped to a knee, flagrant cursing reduced to a babble. "I…Kushina-dono — you — I — "

"Wha?"

"I'm sorry."

"Oh please,"

"I'm really sorry."

"Not your problem, you know."

"I am so, _so_ sorry I came late." Kakashi crouched over, pressed a hand to his sharingan, hard. He let out a heavy, muffed sigh. And then he pulled the forehead-protector over his left eye. Immediately, he straightened up, all weakness wiped off his face in a clean cut moment. "How are you? Can you move?"

"Kakashi, I'm utterly fine. Except that I'm poisoned. And it's going to take awhile before I get it out of my system. That's what your seeing with your sharingan — it's not life threatening, you know?" Kushina laid a hand on his shoulder, grounding him. She could feel the dreariness of the poison subside a bit.

Some low quality poison in the end. Should have bought brand.

"Say," Kushina said, patting Kakashi on the shoulder, "What the heck are you doing out in the woods?"

"I'm on a mission."

"Alone?"

"I sent my subordinates back."

Kushina squinted. She pulled back her hand to rub at her side. "Why?" she said, tone high.

Kakashi blinked one time too many. "Because we finished early. So they're heading back."

When Kakashi noticed she was still waiting for him to answer the question, he glanced to the floor. "And…I was heading back too."

"Are you?" Kushina piped up.

"Am I?" Kakashi said.

"Kakashi-kun."

"Kushina-dono?"

"Don't try something that works on Minato on me — answer the question!" Kushina frowned, poking her fingers into the bridge of her nose before slapping it down in her lap.

Kakashi's blank face faltered a second before he bowed his head. "I'm…looking for Minato-sensei," he admitted meekly. He steeled himself for the backlash that didn't come.

Kushina sighed. "Me too," she muttered. "Me too."

* * *

Kushina hadn't needed much dressings — most of her wounds were going to go a mouldy purple-green. But that could all be sorted out in a couple nights at the infirmary with some medical ninjutsu, if her energy didn't come back in time. It was waiting out for the poison to completely subside that irritated her. Her chakra was still too shallow and weak; she was unable to mould it as well as she should. And that made her a sitting duck of a target.

"This is the place where he was last seen." Kakashi pointed to the third 'x' on the hand drawn map, tracing it some way away from the dam Kushina had patched up. "And this," Kakashi pointed to a non-discernible area of empty map. "Is about where we are."

"Is this legal? Kakashi?"

Kakashi smoothed out the map. "Ex…cuse me, Mamn?"

"You're ANBU. A troop leader. Can you be doing this?"

"Of course I can." He offered her a smile, reassuring her. "I finished my mission. Really. The rest of the deployment have headed back to Konoha. I told them I had something personal to do."

Worry seeped into Kushina's eyes.

"If I find sensei as soon as possible, I'll be let off light. If not — I'm not going back until I at least gain more leads to persuade a full scale search."

Kakashi shrugged in the small cavern they took refuge in. It was too small to stand up. "What's getting reprimanded for finding sensei?"

"The ANBU are harsh."

Kakashi looked up, facing Kushina squarely. Her lips were drawn into a thin, weary line, the firelight of their camp making her expression turn gaunt. Worry stretched over her face as she reached over to press Kakashi's hand in hers. His hands were cold, her's hot. Kakashi stood his ground as Kushina squeezed.

"I'm just worried. You've done more than enough and you could already get in trouble with that lot over this. I can take it from here and keep looking."

The boredness draped over Kakashi like a curtain. "No." He frowned. "I'm following through this investigation. Konoha won't do anything for fear of getting this out. And the village can't afford to send ninja out right now. And—"

"Yeesh, ok, Kakashi! We'll take this one together." Kushina removed her hand, pushed a cup of tea into the instead. "I dump two rookies in the wood only to bump into a cynic. Huh." Kushina gulped her's down in one go. When she looked at him again, he'd already downed his cup, mask neatly pushed into place again.

"Thanks for coming for me, Kakashi."

Kakashi's eyes widened. He was taken aback. "I. Of course, Kushina-dono. You're welcome."

* * *

It had not occurred to him that he had been tailed. Why would it? He did everything, almost everything, by the book: hid under a mask, constantly tuned down his chakra, concealed the very sound it took for people to walk and talk and breathe. He was the perfect, textbook-for-the-academy ninja.

And more.

Young Hatake Kakashi would have been a target for any pretty bounty, no matter the rare kekkei genkai in his left socket. Flying through the ranks after the conclusion of the Third Great Ninja War, he had disappeared from public records only to reappear as a codename on Konoha's black books. Even within the ANBU, he was renowned as something else. Son of the late, treacherous White Fang. Student of the late, missing-in-action Yellow Flash. What was it with Konoha's golden boys and pseudonyms with bright colours?

Self-proclaimed 'Red Hot Habanero' Kushina, more frequently known as the gentle, loving wife of the 'Flash, did not know which of those traits that the guy who was doing the tailing was after. It could be any single one of them. Or all of them. And ok, she had to admit it, that eye of his was something that could fetch a more than shiny price on the black market.

Hatake Kakashi was a lucrative teen.

Somehow, that clean cut ANBU record had gotten out, and he was far too young to have landed a bingo book name like that the one he had: Copy-nin Kakashi. Far too stylish. Far too lucky. And no horrendous colour code. The boy had to be a black sheep even in that respect. It made Kushina roll her eyes.

"Kushina-dono?" Kakashi started, looking back at her up the cliffside. Of course he could perfectly climb a vertical cliff without skipping a beat. What did the kid do all day? Practice with one hand tied behind his back?

"I'm fine," Kushina said. She strained her back climbing the rest of the way up. Kakashi reached dangerously over the side, reaching out a hand for her. "Careful!" Kushina growled as she he pulled her up.

It was already quite a wonder that Kakashi had not detected the tailer. She had thought the extra chakra was one of his subordinates. It was faint, but the moment Kakashi had jumped into her ring of enemies, Kushina had eyed around outskirts, senses prickling but unable to put a finger on it. It started as an itch she couldn't scratch. But Kakashi had told the truth — all of his unit were long gone. And yet, from inside the small cavern before, beside the fireplace and amid the thicket of wood, she could feel that presence digging into her back like teeth.

Warm, jagged and pointed. How could Kakashi not feel it?

Unless he was hiding it from her as damned well as she was hiding it from him.

"So where to now?" Kushina asked, fake-stretching to conceal the fact that she was really out of breath from the climb.

He unfolded the map at his side and peered over it. Kushina stared.

 _No_ — even if he was acting, Kakashi knew how to act and leave no openings. He kept his eyes on the paper too long, his hands were too relaxed and weapons pouch was shut tight. He could only see so far with one eye. Besides, if the Copy nin knew he was getting tailed, he'd have taken off the moment he'd safely parked Kushina at a campsite.

Then why was she the only one who had noticed?

 **Because** ** _I_** **did,** said a voice.

"You?"

Paper shuffled.

"Me?" Kakashi put it down, attention fully turned on her again.

Kushina lingered a moment, glazed look on her face. She blinked. "Eh? What's wrong?"

Kakashi made a face. "I — didn't you just. Never mind." He shrugged. "This is about where Minato-sensei was last seen."

Kushina immediately focussed. The terrain was slightly wet, draped in the morning dew, a slight mist drifting where the sunlight made it visible. Kakashi trod over the rocky areas, avoiding the moss and long grass; Kushina ploughed through the centre of it. For a moment, she thought she'd given herself up while on guard on every front except in front Kakashi. He'd started signing again. Typical spy behaviour. But of course Kakashi resorted to signing the moment they were nine metres apart; it wasn't that he'd noticed anything different.

She didn't make a remark about it, this time. This time, was when someone was watching.

Kushina signed back, _'Following. You - left, me - right.'_ She smiled. ' _Roger, Captain.'_

Kakashi reddened on the line of his mask, nodded, and turned away.

The wind picked up, tousling her hair over her face and neck. Kushina pulled it away, walking into the shadows beneath the trees.

"Now, what?"

She ambled to a stop.

"…What do you want?" she asked under her breath. No one answered her. Only an echo of a sound murmured aloud.

The grounds dissolved. The leaves littering the pathless terrain frenzied with the last blow of wind, scattering them over water that didn't exist out of her eyes. It was all haphazard, all distorted for a moment.

Everything drew to a still, bar the ripples of the leaves at her feet. They broke the surface of the mirror-like water, breaking her image into choppy, fluid fragments. She looked up. Before her was miles and miles of a nothingness, stretching on until infinity. Infinity was a very long, far time, but it nevertheless put a scope upon it. This was a void that always went on and on, the thing that was left when forever had given up. She could walk this place and tread it's maze a hundred, thousand times, and never come across an obstruction. It all grew unbearably quiet. The water rippled without sound. The leaves moved without sound. Even the wind that she still felt in her hair, in this enclosed space, was without sound.

But if she blinked one more time, opened the crevice in her mind a sliver of a centimetre wider — the same dark corridor would be occupied immediately. She did not blink.

"If we do this now," Kushina said, louder, "then we leave the boy out of it." She tensed, cocking her head. "Understand?"

She was gripped in a feeling, light and comical, that wasn't a straight answer.

"Unders—"

A weight dropped onto her shoulder. Her skin jumped on contact. Kushina swivelled around, eyes wide and darting about.

"Kushina-dono?!"

Kushina swallowed, furrowing her brows. The entire world had shook before her eyes, swinging the sky and ground into an illogical mesh as she turned. The wind whooshed through the trees, crumpled leaves scraped the rock and sound of a stream trickling returned.

Kushina smiled. "Yeah? My bad, Kakashi-kun, got distracted trying to feel for chakra," she said, semi-honestly.

Kakashi's widened eyes relaxed a fraction. A small fraction, dull gleam filing away that information. He was a sharp boy. _Ninja._ Despite everything, all his titles and body count she didn't linger over too long (hell — to be a ninja was to have a body count), she couldn't stifle the disappointment. "Oh. Forgive me, if I startled you," Kakashi apologised.

He lowered his head a little — always so formal, the ninja — and backed away and stopped squarely. It was only then that Kushina noticed her hand: deftly clasped onto his and squeezing in a way very unlike how she'd done at the campsite. Kushina let go languidly.

"No, it was my fault. I think I'm — I'm still a bit loopy from the poison, you know?"

"It's fine," he said, reaching a hand through his hair, "but I have something to show you."

She knew it. He knew it. Kakashi had followed her reflexive jerk and countered them as she did it. Walking out of her trace, it wouldn't have taken much to snap his wrist. Kushina was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. He'd grown up so strong and so much braver than he needed to be. Than he should be.

The ninja world was a harsh one, and whenever Kushina turned back to face him, all she could see was a boy — eating tomato soup at her breakfast table. She'd seen the wounds, far too many of them, but seeing Kakashi work with his ANBU mask at his side — one mask taken off for her convenience (good kami she was a bad-good influence on him), it suddenly hit her. She wondered why it hit her now and not when he was beating up a gaggle of grown men, but it did. Kakashi was exactly the ninja that her generation aimed to create. Most of his classmates could be goofy and lead somewhat of a nicer life. Sometimes, she wished that it wasn't Kakashi who had to stay shrouded in shadows and ANBU and immediate call-to-arms. Just some other unlucky, humourless kid. Just not someone she had to care so utterly and painfully about. Kushina wondered how Minato ever got to sleep, having been a sensei to _three_ kid—ninja.

Kakashi looked back again, brows picking up. "Kushina-dono?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming…" she sang.

Kakashi followed the flattened grass path he'd made. Kushina followed Kakashi. The anonymous stalker followed them.

* * *

Kakashi bounded over the rocks, gesturing to the ruins. Kushina gasped when she got to the site, muscle working in her lip. She shut her eyes as if to groan, but all that escaped was a sigh. Coming from Kushina, that was never good news.

They'd come across some shrine grounds, chiselled, mossy and different-sized Buddha statues sat in the undergrowth. A red pagoda jumped out of the green-brown, wet incense sticks down to half size on a redwood table for offerings. It would have been quite plain and bare, if not for the shower of arrows dug over every other inch on the table. Arrows on the pagoda roof, arrows pointing out of the earth, arrows jutting out of Buddha's eye. And nose. And handless arm, earless head, in the crevice that separated his quarter of the backside of the pagoda had completely collapsed. Deep gashes and mounds appeared over the dirt, and it had rained in the eight days. There was no chance of a scent or bloodstain to be found. Even weighty footprints would have mellowed out over that time.

Kakashi let Kushina walk ahead of him, scanning the scene, allowing him to slip a little back and rub the circulation back into his wrist and hand. Something was wrong. Kushina-dono was acting like Kushina-dono up until the moment when she reacted like when someone insulted her cooking. (Which, mind anyone, was quite an atrocity. Kushina's cooking was more than he could ever achieve in this life.)

Kakashi clenched his fingers, quirked his brows and returned before she noticed his being shady. Now that information haunted him like a ghost on his back, knowingness of it slowly settling under his skin and bleeding paranoia directly to his brain. Kakashi was intently on guard again, and he was always, somewhat on guard. There was nothing obviously crouched and ready to pounce. So naturally, anything could be a threat and everything was a danger. Kakashi resisted the urge to uncover the sharingan right then and there. If Kushina did not want him to know of it, then he did not need to know.

Crouched over the most whole-looking Buddha, Kakashi called Kushina over. "Here," he said, gently pushing the grass away.

Kushina's eyes widened. The time-space seal, wrapped around the unmistakable tri-blade kunai, gleamed back.

"I've already checked to make sure. This is the one sensei gave me as a gift, on the day I became a jonin." Kakashi slipped his version of the tri-blade kunai out. Polished, and in pristine condition next to the one stuck into the side of the Buddha. Completely identical. But the words of the Flying Thunder God technique inscribed on the hilt of the found-one were faded and broken by a series of cuts. Meaning neither the body flicker jutsu or time space seal worked. _Behold, the Flying Thunder God's ultimate weakness: cuts on some words on a kunai hilt._

Kakashi tucked his kunai safely away, nodding. "Minato-sensei was here."

"It looks like to me that Minato was _all_ over here," Kushina remarked, taking in the destruction of the place again. She wrenched the kunai out. The blade was chipped and dirtied, but otherwise ok.

"What do you think?" Kushina asked, cleaning the kunai on her flak jacket.

"I think Minato-sensei had been followed."

Kushina flinched. "Reeaaally? What makes you think that?"

"It's been too long and there isn't much of a trail anymore. But a fight of this scale at a shrine? The men that were chasing you for information. We know they weren't the ones that Minto-sensei fought. Because _I_ could beat them. And the space-time kunai — Minato would never use that lightly. Except to kill, or run."

Kakashi looked up at her, worry seeping into his eyes. "I think Minato chose to run."

Because if he had killed…well, they wouldn't be having this problem.

"So the question is," Kushina continued, hairs at the back of her neck pricking, "What was Minato running from?"

* * *

 **Notes**

So I said earlier that I wrote this entire fic imagining Kakashi at an implausible age in his early 20's for some reason. Even though he's 26 at the start of the series. But that's just me you guys imagine him as old or young as you like. (I'm thinking like 17 or 18 now. I know that can't be possible but whatever~ Older Kakashi means better sass.)

Here, we have more Kushina pov. Kushina pov is sooo ironic and dry humoured ahaha. Probably quite different to how Kushina's portrayed in canon but I want to write her like - proud house wife who loves choosing from the florist what kind of flowers to put on her dining table and also there is a literal samurai sword in the kitchen for her use. As in, proud house wife who everybody looks at and goes, ah, house wife, and not wow _done-with-_ war veteran who can smell fear from a mile away. The moment she married, Konoha forgot who she was to gawp at her husband. And that's alright with her becasue 1) she, too, likes to gwap at her husband. Like, who wouldn't? He's the yellow flash lol. But also 2) she doesn't want to reminded of her being a foreign, bijuu-charged nuclear weapon, she wants to live a nice life and try on lots of nice dresses and punch bad guys in alley ways while holding her shopping. Because yes, while her predecessor and love is all great, she was still bought to Konoha to be the powerkeg container. She wanted to be a hokage-who? when she was young? Like, why, that is so tiring. (But it's alright - she's the one holding the fancy-lettered sign for Minato at coronation day. Behind the podium because she's supposed to stand there with the other Important People.) I had to depower for now otherwise she'll solve all their problems lol.

This Kushina loves her domestic life, but she hasn't abandoned being a ninja for it. However, she's still impulsive and super impatient and is pretty sure she's right 99.99% of the time. Which isn't always true XD. Anyhow, everything would have been great if Minato didn't go and fall off the face of the earth. Kushina only has so much time before this cuts into her monthly knitting quota. Come home, Minato. Ur making your smol, masked son sad. He's like a lost, kicked puppy here. Dude.

Kakashi is just about coming out of his eternal man-angst stage. If the last chapter didn't just throw him back into all of that. But I'm sure he'll be fine. Kushina knows this and is supportive.

So the plot thickens. My fav line in this is "Kakashi followed the flattened grass path he'd made. Kushina followed Kakashi. The anonymous stalker followed them." I don't know why I forgot I wrote this and when I reread I started laughing at my own writing ahahahah. It's terrible. Anyhow, watch your backs guys.

thanks

\- earl


	6. Pseudonym: Copy-nin

Hello. There's swear words in this one :O..

* * *

 **Pseudonym: Copy-nin**

Kumogakure: village hidden by the clouds, in the land of lightning.

Iwagakure: village hidden by the rocks, in the land of earth.

Kirigakure: village hidden by the mist, in the land of water

Sunagakure: village hidden in sand, in the land of wind.

And Konohagakure: village hidden by the leaves, in the land of fire.

The five great powers had ended the Third Great Ninja War. Tensions were ever-incessantly changing in post war conditions, and peace conference after peace conference were attended with differing levels of lacklustre. The creed of ninja was pride and glory — concessions token at worst and brutal at worser. Though, with the state of the world in an after-frenzy, the nations had managed a flimsy peace that was fast reaching a decade. Miraculously, it was Konoha and Sunagakure that had first begun to mend international relations, creating an exchange agreement for ninja of both nations and freeing the borders on an unprecedented level.

Namikaze Minato had sped back to Konoha carrying an affirmation for a secret alliance.

The specifics went like this: Konoha already had Suna in it's ranks. An alliance with Kumo would change the entire playing field, effectively alienating the farthest Iwa. Iwa could not afford to be blockaded by a double alliance on the part of Konoha, and with the former Bloody Mist separated by water and dubiously insistent with its isolationist policy, Iwa was marooned.

But this was not wartime. There was no formal declaration and no public admission of animosity. According to the books, all was sunny and well — Iwa could not openly oppose the alliance. And that was the least of their problems, all the ninja they sent had to curb doton techniques to retain secrecy. Whether it was on the orders of the kage, or the Iwa's own black ops institution, hordes of ninja were sent out with one, fairly-interpretable order:

 _The affirmation of the Konoha-Kumo alliance must not reach Konoha._

There were not enough ninja to spare; the world had to keep turning, the best of Iwa had to continue on missions and make sure the system remained supported. But for the few available — perhaps the rumours grew vapid, tuneless the way the end of a dream seemed weaker than the start, or the end of a myth sounded more and more cliche — people dared, once again, to go after the Yellow Flash.

And they did.

"Kushina," Minato said out loud, scribbling a note on his thigh as he leaned on a rock. Bodies littered the floor in droves and he'd stolen some ink and brush from someone's pouch. He let himself be chased the entire way back. It was important that he didn't kill. Every single ninja within his vicinity was after his blood, but he could not afford to leave corpses. The famed Yellow Flash, despite it all, did not have the stomach for it. And more importantly, _many conspicuously dead Iwa nin_ would cause a very public incident. Since this was a _secret_ mission, it would be totally unprofessional of him. He could tell: the Yellow Flash was all about professionalism.

They came to murder him; he couldn't murder them back.

"I hope the mission was successful, because I don't know. Uhh…I wasn't really allowed to look at the message I was sending…" he 'donked' his head back on the stone, cringing at the letter. "But I hope it was worth it, because the moment I stepped over the border, I've been a magnet for ninja everywhere." He full stopped and mashed his lips. Was he allowed to tell her that he knew it was Iwa nin? Minato huffed, he figured it wasn't safe or anything acceptable for the higher ups'. _Though quite obviously, who the heck else could it be if not Iwa ninja?_

"About a few separate groups have attacked me and I'm getting increasingly tired from having to be constantly on the move. I know your blood pressure is going to rise reading that last line, but at least it's halved the time for me to get home, _right?"_

He smiled at his own writing. "So you can expect me back a little early. I'll see you soon, Kushina." And he signed off: _Love, Mina._

Eyes narrowing thoughtfully, Minato haunched over the slip of paper, fingers resting under his chin in deep concentration. He picked up the brush again, adding onto the end.

 _Love, Mina._

 _xoxo_

Minato straightened up next to the unconscious bodies next to him, leaning forward to reread what he'd written. His nose scrunched, his lips pursed, and he touched his nose half a dozen times. Finally, he sighed loudly and turned his head to the man beside him. After a little while of staring, he shifted to untwist his arm. (The man's arm was unbearably languid. He was not going to do try that again.)

"Gah."

With a flick of his wrist, wind chakra ripped up the note into fine shreds. He picked up the ink and paper and tried again.

 _Red,_

 _I'm fine. The mission is fine. And I finished early this time. Hey! That rhymes!_

 _I'll be back to the village by the third sundown from the time you receive this note._

 _Love you,_

 _Mina._

He was confident that that was what he was going to do. Cue to three sundowns later. _Red_ had waited for _Mina_ at the Konoha great gates for the entire night. He never came home.

* * *

"Let's stop and rest here," Kushina said after a long day of walking.

"What?"

"Oh you know," Kushina gestured to no one, "that thing where you stop and get some _damned supper and sleep to function?_ Remember that, Kakashi? _Sleep?"_

"Why, yes," Kakashi flit a hand to the back of his head, brushing it through his hair, "Yes, of course." This was an overly open place to make camp, Kakashi thought. "I'll get us firewood."

"No need." Kushina ambled over to the nearest tree. With most of her chakra mouldable again, she placed a hand square over the trunk, and pushed until it cracked. Kakashi's eye widened. The entire tree curled over, wood dust flying into the air. "Done."

She looked up. "What did you bring?"

"Pardon?" Kakashi stammered.

"Food."

"Ah," he smiled, closing his eye. "About that. Actually, I—"

"You were planning to live on food pills, weren't you?"

Kakashi smiled harder, lump in his throat. He did not plan to disappoint Kushina this early.

A thud hit the floor, making Kakashi flinch out of nothing. Kushina struck a pose, putting her hands on her hips. "Well, you're in luck." She grinned, far too toothily. "You're stuck out here with me." Immediately, she went for her pouch, pulling out a scroll that made Kakashi wonder how the heck she had ever managed to fit it in that tiny thing. The scroll unravelled, and instead of weapons or ammunitions, when the smoke cleared from the trees, Kakashi was faced with an entire rack of cooking utensils. A large pot, actual chopsticks and bowls were placed neatly before them.

Kakashi blinked dumbly. He felt a bout of hunger washing over him. Even tomato soup and burnt rice sounded delicious to him now.

"Hot pot," Kushina winked.

He couldn't believe that he had dared think himself decent with his cooking. Not that he had ever tried to make anything fancy, but it wasn't as if he'd never hot-potted by himself. Kushina packed garden vegetables and spices. They went hunting for fish and stoats. He wondered how Minto-sensei fed himself on missions usually, even though he'd been on plenty of missions with him (they packed minute-food). Kakashi finished in record time, Kushina went for seconds, and also, the night was dark, the ground was green. Or, since this was the fire country, the night was indeed dark, the ground was covered in a thick, ninja-swallowing death forest that resulted in consistent and annual traveller deaths.

He fiddled with the pots and pans, trying not to look suspicious. Eyeing in all directions, he could see nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. This camp site was far too open and airy. Why had Kushina chosen this spot? Kakashi supposed this way, there was little chance of being caught off guard. Usually, he was the one doing the hiding.

"Rest up now," Kushina said, piling all the things back with a _poof_ back onto the scroll. "We'll keep going in this direction in the morning." Kushina flicked her long hair to the side and flopped down onto her makeshift futon.

"Aright," Kakashi answered. "I'll keep a lookout. Just in case."

Kushina sat right back up. "There's no need. Just go to bed. No exceptions."

Kakashi froze, caught.

"Sit."

"But I…it'll be safer if I just—"

"No, no, I wrote a seal on the edge of the camp site. If anyone with chakra enters, it'll detect it, you know."

Kakashi simpered. "But I…"

He made it worse. Her face fell, a strange sort of expression crossing it. Something panicky, before concern rolled over and she opened her mouth mirthlessly. Kushina fully got up, crossed the distance and bobbed down right before Kakashi. "What's the matter?" she asked, slow and resolute not a mocking fibre in her voice.

"What's what?" Kakashi quickly bit back and regretted immediately.

"What's up?" Kushina repeated.

"The moon?"

"Don't be coy."

"Nothing's up."

"Kakashi…you doubt my seals?"

"I dare not."

"You dare too."

"…Alright, you got me."

"No I didn't. Don't lie to me."

"No…really, Kushina-dono, it's not that."

"Then what?"

"I…" He shouldn't have said it, but this was Kushina-dono and he let himself slip. Kakashi sighed and shrugged. "I don't doubt your seals. Nothing with chakra can get past those seals. It's just that — I don't sleep so well. I thought I'll just keep a look out. Just for tonight," he said honestly. "There's only two of us so I should stay on alert. You should sleep, Kushina-dono."

He didn't know what was worse, having to tell her the truth, or watching the colour blanche from her face, even in this dim light. His stomach turned, embarrassment squirming in its place.

"Hey, Kakashi-kun, I haven't been out on this mission for that long. You've been out of the village for a month."

It was months with an 's' in actuality, but hell if he was going to correct her. Kushina had already dealt with too many of his problems.

"And I know. That's why you need to take this chance to, you know, actually get some rest?" Kushina huffed, sat down beside him and Kakashi shrank a little more inside. "Is it the dark? _Hey_ , a heap of ninja can't stand the dark thanks to stress. Is it insomnia? If you're afraid of not being able to wake up, of course I'll—"

"It's this dream," Kakashi blurted out, if only to stop her.

Kushina nodded, listening intently. Kakashi was glad to have the mask covering his face right now.

"It's this dream I keep having. I close my eyes and it's always there. Someone's always reaching out for me — and no matter how hard I reach, I can't get to them in time. There's always another me, and theres always a bright light."

"Well…that's ominous," Kushina said, caressing her chin as if she had a beard. "Who is it?"

"Since I've heard that Minato sensei's gone, it's been him. It's also been Obito. But usually…" Kakashi stopped, his throat feeling wholly tight.

"Usually it's Rin," Kushina finished quietly.

Kakashi swallowed heavily, nodding.

Kushina nodded back, eyes narrowing in consternation and thought, a million racing words no doubt milling around her head. She'll say something that he'd smile and agree with, make a little joke with a cringey punchline and mime a hand to forehead, no matter what it was.

"The dreams, huh?" she started, propping a cheek up with her hand. "I'm not sure how to get rid of them. It's going to take awhile. But avoiding sleep is just going to make it worse when you do get rest," she sighed. "I'm not sure how to help either but…" Kushina pondered, squishing her face into her hand now, "Firstly, Minato is not dead, so you can stop jumping to the worst conclusions. We all do it, but — _when I get to him I'm going to pound his head especially for making you go through this!"_

Kakashi snapped back, faced downwards and blinked profusely.

"And the other thing. Kakashi, you were eleven during the war."

Kakashi looked up, frowning.

"Barely eleven, barely a double digit age, you know. Does that sound right to you?" Kushina said, voice straining through her teeth. "Eleven, and having to fight for your country." Suddenly, she looked away, scoffing to the skies and quickly swiped a hand over her face. "I know it's hard on you and you can't change what happened, but what you can change is how you think of it. And the truth is, we think we're right but they think they're right. In war like that, there isn't a right, and there isn't a wrong. There's nothing in war, that's why they can promote children to jonin level and send them off like fodder."

Her voice was soft but ragged, breathing quickening as anger came to the surface. But she pushed it down, anger that wasn't aimed at him and wouldn't ever be, anger that she held like smouldering cobalt melting ice and Kushina was angry for all the things that didn't occur to Kakashi that he should be angry at. "Do you think, today, that the authorities could pass a kid as a chunin? Let alone a jonin?" Kushina asked honestly, eyes going wide and satirical again.

"...No."

"Right? Send ninja who can't even order a drink on a mission?"

"…No, Kushina-dono."

"You're a _genius,_ Kakashi," Kushina cooed, sighing.

And with every word she said, she was right. Maybe it was the survivor's guilt, or maybe it was just the mellowing out of a good, traumatic experience, not that Kakashi had particularly held himself responsible for all the misgivings of the world, but more like — there was always more for him to do. He was supposed to be a genius. He should have been faster, should have been stronger, should have figured it out sooner, hit harder, screamed louder…

All those 'should haves' turned into 'could haves.'

He could have done more for his comrades.

He could have saved Rin.

"You couldn't have done more for the past, Kakashi," Kushina answered, breaking him out of his lonesome thoughts again. "Being in that position was already asking the world of you. Your generation was asked too much."

It clicked in him, those words.

"Think about it, obsess over it, but just know that you've done more than enough."

He felt his vision go blurry suddenly, and it alarmed him. He didn't even have anything to say to that — what could he say to that? It felt absolutely terrible. It felt like there was a river in his heart, enclosed his chest, pumping white water around his veins and he could barely contain himself. Tears _plick, plick, plicked_ into his lap, and he sniffed them discretely away. It was too simple a fact, and yet, he never glossed over it, buried it under the mountain of things he tried to forget but Kushina said it like it was — the truth was, they were children. It wasn't going to suddenly fix everything that he'd kept inside him to gather rust, but it was a start. Kakashi slapped his hands to his face, not even embarrassed enough to care about it anymore. Where he didn't care enough, Kushina always cared.

"Now, get some rest, you know?"

 _"_ N-no. One of us…still has to…"

Kushina turned up her nose at him, scoffing mildly. "Look, I'll stay up and keep a look out. Halfway through, I'll wake you and make you do the rest, ok?"

He wan't going to win this one. He wasn't going to win anything with Kushina around. "Thanks, Kushina-dono."

"Don't mention it."

She crawled away, sitting on the makeshift futon and cupping her hands on a cup of tea again. And then, after a still, quiet beat, "Do you have to sleep with that mask on? Is it not stuffy? _We're literally in the wild._ "

Kakashi's eyes snapped open again. "The wild isn't going to stop me from accidentally swallowing a bug, Kushina-dono. In fact, it's the opposite."

"Tch."

* * *

The cold of the night made Kakashi's breaths feel crisp and new. An soft, pervasive smell of decaying acorns, wet bark and bundled-up leaves followed him as he went further into the dark. The campground was some way behind him and he hoped he'd left enough distance. He knew the dew-damp soil would leave footprints, but there was nothing he could do about that. If anything were to happen, let it happen now and he could be done with it and saunter off back to sleep. That was all that he asked for. Moonlight streamed through the canopy, cutting the light into thin beams that faded before it hit the ground. He thought there might have been a layer of mist at his feet, curling around his ankles as he walked and cracked every single dry leaf he could discern from the dark.

Crunch, crunch, squelch.

Honestly, he was just trying to make as much noise as he could without being an obvious nuisance. Kakashi couldn't see shit. How did he live seeing through one eye up until now? Kakashi sighed, tugging at the cloth over his covered eye self consciously. A sound that was not squelching and grass growing sounded somewhere. Kakashi immediately reacted, leaping to the brightest part of the wood in sight. He craned his neck, saying softly,

"Notice me, Senpai."

An unadulterated cough that sounded suspiciously like air getting sucked into nostrils blared from the dark, chunky and ragged. A man dropped down from whatever plane of existence he was hiding — the paranoid, the ugly or the introverted. There had to be some reason he didn't want to show his face, Kakashi thought.

"Listen here kiddo," he grunted, stopping about a safe eight metres before him, "I'm not your senpai." He stabbed a finger in his direction. "If you're going to play polite, you might as well address me as your Ojichan's Ojichan."

 _Ah,_ Kakashi sighed, nodding in an over-the-top dip, _so I'm picking a fight with an old man. How comely._

"…But count me as interested. I've followed you like a hawk for days and — did you _actually_ know I was there the whole time? I wonder why you chose to face me now." Kakuzu rolled back his shoulders, frowning. "It's because that woman found out, didn't she?"

Carefully, Kakashi rolled his sleeves back twice, facing the man fully. "So, I take that your after me. My bounty."

"Are there any other, Kakashis' of the Hidden Leaf Village?"

"Fine. You got me."

"Well. There goes my need to profile you the old fashioned way. It was probably preferable, but…"

Kakashi scoffed, rolling his one eye. "So do you want me to call you Ojichan's Ojichan, or do you want to take people of your ages' advice and nicely introduce yourself?"

The man straightened the finger that he had used to point — _rude_ — and sneered with only pair of eyes uncovered by his navy mask. Not quite unlike Kakashi's, now that he thought of it. He didn't know how to think about that. Anyhow, his eyes: dark scleras, green irises. If he wasn't snooping aroung to assassinate him, surely, he was hiding himself for the _ugly._

Tendrils burst from his finger. Quite literally burst from his finger from the stitches, jutting out sideways and squiggling like worms swimming through the air. Kakashi took it in with a wide, gaping eye. Of all the thins he had seen, there was no way to unsee this one. This, very admittedly, was disgusting. Right on cue, a slew of tendrils burst from his palms. Then from his wrist, his forearms, his elbow and all the way up to this shoulder. In a grand finish, holes began to open up on his neck, revealing those worm-like projections unfurling from beneath his skin. Kakashi swallowed, reaching for the kunai at his back.

"Greetings, then, kid," he said. The insignia carved into his forehead protector gleamed as he cocked his head without shifting his eyes. Light passed from one end of the gash to the other, a line crossing out his former allegiance. "It's Kakuzu-sama. Formerly of the Hidden Waterfall Village. And when I say formerly," he said, narrowing his eyes into a slant smile. "I mean, not long after the damned flooded place was first founded."

He charged.

Kakuzu flung up his arms, Kakashi parrying them a moment later. The impact shot him backwards, feet digging into the undergrowth as Kakuzu's weight bore down on him. In a sweeping motion, Kakashi hooked around one foot, trying to put off his balance. Kakuzu didn't budge. "Kids these days," he muttered.

Kakashi immediately kicked both feet off the ground with both his arms still backing Kakuzu's, and launched a kick to his solar plexus. Kakuzu let go, but didn't try awfully hard to defend.

"Everybody has to be a goddamned legend these days," he grouched, lifting his head.

Kakashi rounded the thickest part of the wood, appearing on the other end and showering the grounds with a barrage of shuriken.

"Not least snot-nosed adolescents." Kakuzu reached out an arm. Tendrils wrapped around Kakashi's, slapping the weapons to the floor in three great whacks. He finished, drawing the tendrils back before flinching around. Kakashi appeared from the side, throwing a shuriken at extremely close quarters. Kakuzu arched around lightning fast to catch it, leaving him open on the other side. With one deft swipe, Kakashi stabbed a kunai square into his neck. _"Hngh—"_ Kakuzu grunted.

"I'd much rather be snot-nosed than worm infested," Kakashi put mildly. He pulled a shuriken from the floor, eyeing Kakuzu with cold indifference. "Remember my name. Copy. Nin. Kakashi."

He waited for the burly man to double over.

 ** _Don't be daft. It's far from over._**

 _"What?"_

The burly man did not double over. Instead, his head rolled back against the skies, his mask stretched tight and he began to howl with laughter. Kakashi took a step back, resurveying what the heck had happened. No jutsu that could keep you alive after a stab in the neck came to mind.

 ** _Look out._**

Tendrils poured from Kakuzu, coiling and writhing and rolling towards Kakashi. He jolted back, but the tendrils caught his legs and began crawling up his body. All he managed to do was chuck the shuriken he was holding. Kakuzu leaned his head to the side, letting it pass unobstructed past his shoulder. A leaf brushed his face. Kakuzu laughed in the peculiar way of a man drowning. Kakashi stiffened as his voice died down.

"Imagine my disappointment. I run around this wretched country looking for the wretched Yellow Flash and when I caught wind of the wretched Copy-nin instead, I counted it as my luck! Hah!" Kakuzu spat, reeling Kakashi in. He twisted and turned, struggling to get free as the coils looped all around.

"Little did I know, the famed Copy-nin is something like a blind runt. Fucks' sake." Kakauzu spat at the root of the tree. Kakashi stopped struggling to wince in a face of disgust. "Suppose it doesn't matter whether you're a disappointment or not. Your head is still worth a bit _._ Heh," he added snidely. "And I hate religion."

"You know what I hate?" Kakashi suddenly piped up.

"I don't give a crap."

"I hate unsolicited explosions. Yet here we are." Kakashi covered his face as best he could with one arm.

 _"—You,"_ Kakuzu swivelled around, frantic. The shuriken he let sail over his shoulder was tied to a leaf. On the leaf, were the seals of a paper bomb. "I hate smart f—"

Fire erupted in the middle of the jungle-like woodlands. Kakuzu retracted all the tendrils, getting blown backwards into the bushes. Kakashi laid on the floor, waiting for the fire to go out. Within a minute or so, the burning simmered down by itself and disappeared, leaving only a waft of smoke. Jutsu fire never did that (not unless they were highly skilled or Uchiha), only sealed fire did.

Kakashi coughed, picking himself up and immediately touching his mask; _god, how did he keep it up all the time?_ He assessed the damage. Apart from black soot and black night, it didn't really matter right now. He headed in the direction of Kakuzu, rubbing his wrists. He hoped he didn't wake up the campsite behind him.

* * *

Kakuzu shook his head, turing to get his bearings when a foot stood upon his fingers, audibly cracking them, and sinking them into the ground. _"Arnngh!"_ He looked up. "Don't get cocky, Copy-nin."

"…The last time I was cocky, I left a ground full of broken bodies behind," he stated coldly, and Kakuzu balked. It was his voice, maybe, or the way his eye stared down into his — as if he was only half-there, fractured, and void of anything. "What do you are doing in the woods?" he squinted.

"Did…we not just go through this part of our relationship?" Kakuzu growled, clenching his hand beneath his feet and letting the tendrils burst forth. The runt flinched, reflexively lifting the foot to jerk back. Copy-Nin disappeared the next second, reappearing at his side. Kakuzu got to his feet. Both hands burst apart, stitches unfurling as the tendrils pecked and moved his skin and muscles asunder. They writhed out in the open like tentacles, licking and flickering away.

The Copy-nin's face broke out in unadulterated surprise, whitening a degree more. Slowly, it went blank again.

"That's disgusting," he said, deadpan.

"That's innovation," Kakuzu replied, and then frowned. "Hmph. At least before, you kept that thought to yourself."

"I what?" he piped up, frowning.

"Just die, Konoha. I — I mean...get unconscious, Konoha." And with that, Kakuzu charged forward, both elongated arms thrown at him. Kakashi reacted immediately, ducking under the reach of his too-long arms and unsheathing his short sword on his back. Dancing around from where the tendrils burst a moment too late to attack him, he slashed into his arms before pouncing to slice into his body.

Kakuzu yelled, irritated, retracing his tendrils as fast as he could. Without hesitation, without him having to look away at his final target, Kakashi severed Kakuzu's left arm clean off, and sped towards his chest. Kakuzu parried the attack with his right arm, deadlocking them. "Ow," he whispered through his teeth. "You got faster, Copy-nin. Didn't put you as the type to play around before getting serious."

"I'm not," Copy-nin stated. He heaved, sweeping his legs and hooking one under his own to make him loose balance. Kakuzu scoffed in amusement. It didn't work before, why in fucks' sake would it—

"GH—"

Kakashi stabbed his short sword into his remaining arm, wedging a fist underneath his shoulder and, using the centrifugal force of the movement, wrangled the larger man to the floor. This couldn't be possible. The Copy-nin was hiding this much of what he could do? What was the point? Kakuzu pulled himself up, coming at him again. "Fine! To have to use power against a runt is a surprise. But I've had enough of this night."

Copy-nin squinted. "You literally used one move on me."

Kakuzu faltered. He peered up from where chakra was collecting in his hand. "You're…not Copy-nin."

The ninja blinked. "So you _are_ after my bounty. I see."

 _"You're not the_ — who the hell are you!" Kakuzu exclaimed loudly.

Not-Copy-nin sighed long and hard without feeling, without tiredness; just sighed as harsh as a sigh could go. Kakuzu gritted his teeth.

"I am Hatake Kakashi, pseudonym: Konoha's Copy-Nin."

Then he pulled up his forehead protector. _Well fuck me sideways, I'm getting deja'vu._ In that little runt socket, was the irrevocable, indisputable sharingan eye. The war spoil that had undoubtedly got him onto his list of bounties, famed across the great villages and even beyond. He wondered which was more of the legend: the eye, or the boy. Regardless, with a kekkei genkai as rare as that — to be able to flawlessly duplicate a jutsu at will…Kakuzu was ready to bathe in his gold-carved bathtub in his idyllic country house over the mountains. Spend all his money, then go back to collecting his bounties. He squirmed, narrowing his eyes at his prize as he paced around, sizing him up. Definitely underestimating him, the kiddo. But his papers were clear: attack gently for fear of damaging the goods. Not matter what, it was not as if he was going to use his five elements on a runt veteran. But the Copy-nin had sliced off his left arm perfectly fine without the use of that sharingan.

"Whatever you want, you settle with _me,_ " the Copy-nin stated, a fact.

Kakuzu smirked from under the mask. "With pleasure."

At once, Kakuzu sped right up to Copy-nin, whacking him square behind the head and ruining his balance. Copy-nin moved, shaking his head and watching him with that beady eye as he struggled not to get KO-ed in one shot. Maybe he did get faster. Maybe he really was a supposed genius. But a runt was still and runt; the second Kakuzu felt like he wanted to end it and go home for drinks, Copy-nin's future only went so far.

Copy-nin jumped, evading his mesh of tendrils before they split apart from the bundle, attacking him individually. Quick successions of slashes glinted in the moonlight, smell of black blood spilling in the air and wafting in his senses. Kakuzu pierced the runt in multiple places and all the runt did was spasm and wince. Not even one call out in pain.

Konoha teens were fucking savage.

He banked left, evading whatever the hell wind-cutter just Copy-nin sent through the air, slicing the line of trees beside him into perfect hedges. Copy-nin grimaced, slapping his hands to the floor and Kakuzu lowered his centre of gravity, narrowly predicting where the dirt upheaved and earthen fangs jut into air to stab him. It should have been a foolproof combo, the kid was proficient and Kakuzu had to give him that. Or at least, that jutsu stealing eye of his. Wind style wasn't Copy-nin's strong point, and he was already panting after use of it. _Fire with the leaf-bomb (leaf-bomb? Heh), wind style, earth style,_ so logically speaking, he should go for—

Copy-nin turned and swivelled, sparks collecting at his fingertips as he lunged forward and spilled a trail of it behind him. He threw back his hand, training his elbow back as far as he could to catch momentum. Kakuzu braced. Copy-nin thrust forward before his hand ignited in electricity, knowing that it would burst alight not a moment too late. " _Chidori!"_

Kakuzu put on a smile. With one deft grip, he caught the chidori in a fist. Copy-nin faltered. Kakuzu squeezed, annulling the lightning chakra as easily as putting out a candle flame. It really should have been a foolproof combo: no water anywhere for a kilometre, he could use fire, wind, earth — there was no ninja that would have expected lightning too. Too bad _he_ was Kakuzu, master of the elements and man of five faces. Four stitched upon his back and one _yours truely_ on his head. Kakuzu flung Copy-nin to the side, smashing him into tree roots.

 _"Kuh—"_ he finally chocked out, huffing.

"You were a fun one in the end, eh?" Kakuzu simpered, lifting Copy-nin by his arm and launching him into another tree. "Didn't expect you to have that much fight in you. I actually had to take this a bit seriously. It's admirable."

"Hngh!" Copy-nin kicked up, crossing over to his arms and sending more shuriken in his direction. Kakuzu battered them away before Copy-nin leapt to close the distance again.

"No more," Kakuzu stated easily. The tendrils burst forth, stopping Copy-nin's decent and tangling around his neck. Copy-nin stiffled, legs dangling in the air as he dropped whatever weapon he was holding to grab at the tendrils. Kakuzu smiled, cooing.

"Nothing personal, Copy-nin. I'm not someone so lame as to indulge my spare time hunting adolscent veterans. But you should know best. Duty calls."

"Du-" Choking, the Copy-nin sucked in air, motioning a hand at him, desperate to make a sound. "Du...ty?!"

"What?" Kakuzu piped up. Slowly, the tendrils receded a little, dragging the Copy-nin in as he neared the floor. Kakuzu stopped just enough for his toes to scrape the ground.

 _"Y-you.."_ he struggled, _"you're self_ — self- _em_ ploye _d."_

"You fucking smartass."

Tendrils beat out from his arm again, drilling Copy-nin into the floor, into oblivion, into the trees and darkness and bad smell of ripped tendrils. So far that Kakuzu squinted into the distance, sighing at his mistake.

"If you fucking die — I swear to your Shodaime Hokage…" he gritted, advancing towards where he'd chucked him.

* * *

Notes.

Sorry it's been a while...sigh. I was never satisfied with this chapter so. More lame jokes? Fake political intrigue? I also spent forever with the villain but then in the end I decided that using an existing villain was the way to go. So I guess kakashi had a run in with not-Akasuki-yet Kakuzu ahahahahaha. I didn't want to spend so much time on Kakuzu set up lol but I thought it would be extra funny if everyone imagines that he'd recently killed off his partner. Like...very recently. Both of them had started tailing Kakashi, Kakuzu and him kept bickering until he thought that they couldn't keep the both of them on the down low. So he killed the guy. Straight up. And then went on tailing Kakashi perhaps a little regrettably, because that was his ninth partner, and dang him it wasn't his fault none of his partners could stay alive long enough! Um, I hope it's not too convoluted to get that there's something up between funny Kakashi and dry Kakashi...XD

Thanks, Jleath1234, coral light, Prescripto13, and Tabjoy13

Also, Tabjoy13 bought up a great point: Kakashi developed chidori because he was trying to mimic the rasengan, resulting in his signiture move. So I guess this is canon-compliant except a few points which hopefully you can overlook. Ahaha! Your're right though, what a prick. I have trouble trying to make Kakashi Cool And Smart, but not Overly Pretentious and Impossible on the other hand ._."

Actually, coral light said that when Kakashi was 14, Minato was already Hokage and he's not in this yet...so...I guess theres quite a few divergences lol


	7. Money Man

Either my jokes are dry or they are funny. There is no in between.

There are a couple of swearwords in this one.

* * *

 **Money Man**

Five elements Kakuzu had been circling the Konoha ANBU for three days. Because it was obvious: the leader was going off records, the rest of them were getting antsy, and whatever mission they were doing must had been important if Konoha ninja were suddenly going under the radar. If they were going after the Yellow Flash too, then this was a group he could tail. Then the main one with the ugliest painted mask threw a silent hissy fit, beckoned the others to leave him undefended in the woods, and ran in the opposite direction.

Lo and behold, the ANBU leader turned out to be none other than Copy-nin-Kakashi.

Who turned out to be, despite the camp-fire horror stories, about 17 or less-looking years old.

Kakuzu squinted, scratching his head. Should he go for Copy-nin and his hefty bounty money? Or Yellow Flash and his heftier bounty money? He had to think this through — Copy-nin was still a kid and he could take him when he desired without breaking a sweat. With the Yellow Flash, he had to deal with them competitors — competitors from all over the ninja world for a piece of that Konoha ass. He didn't have time to fight Iwa ninja all day and guard someone like the Flash.

Besides, who even know where the Yellow Flash was? Being so out of options of finding a newly disappeared ghost, and having another fortune land in front of him like an offering — he might have thanked god.

Except he didn't, not just because he hated religion but because god never believed in money and luxury in every incarnation. Any man-god who didn't trust money was a being he couldn't take. That was what Copy-nin kiddo was to him: Money.

Kakuzu switched tactics, going for the economical route.

One day into his tailing to find specifics on the ninja, he hid behind the bushes and the Copy-nin hid behind the bushes as the red-haired Kunoichi got bashed into the bushes. The kunoichi — _get this_ — the kunoichi was the wife of his initial mission. Yellow Flash's woman. His personal aesthetics demanded he go back to square one.

"So I wait even longer," Kakuzu said through his raspy voice, getting raspier as his tendrils rolled around through his muscle and tissue, causing bulges to rise and fall in his limbs. "I tail the both of you to high hell to get information on Yellow Flash! And guess what?" he asked, arms splayed.

Kakuzu shrugged, cracking his neck both ways before his shadow loomed over Copy-nin's huffing figure in the chasm he'd blasted apart. "Your master-in-law figured it out before you did. For a smart little runt, you were awfully slow on the uptake." He balked, forcing the tendrils to bloom from his neck and arms and fingertips, spreading around the still-shaking Copy-nin to corner him. "Too slow.

"The Yellow Flash would've been scandalised." Kakuzu smirked.

The tendrils struck in Copy-nin's direction, lightning fast. Copy-nin tensed, throwing his arms up and grasping a bundle of tendrils by the tips.

"Ugh," he grimaced, face full of disgust and mask scrunching in the moonlight. "Feels _disgusting."_

Kakuzu blinked, stifled at the action. This was, "—Im _possible."_

Copy-nin began reeling him in by the tendrils, a venom in his smirk and aura in his hair that was too hot, too red to be lightning-natured and he opened his mouth to rebut before — all of a sudden — he was swung violently sideways.

"AHH-"

Kakuzu bashed into a tree.

 _"Nn-"_

Kakuzu was pummelled into some rocks.

 _"Fu-"_

Kakuzu blanked, eyes going darker than the night before falling once more to the ground.

 _"HAH-"_

 _This is impossible — how did the runt pull out this much power, there's no way — with his bare hands —_

 _"YHH-"_

 _Thud._

Opening his eyes, he lingered a moment to himself, trying to discern what position he was in. Instantly, he retracted his long tendrils, even the ones in his neck and back — and with the loss of the weight balance, he tipped over the side of the tree he'd landed in and fell ungraciously to the floor.

Cue: " _Thud"_ number two.

"Ojichan's Ojichan," came a short, smug voice. Kakuzu blinked up at the figure. Copy-nin loomed before him. "You're done."

 ** _Bank left._**

His pupil dilated, and Copy-nin banked left the same time as Kakuzu sent another stream of tendrils at him.

"Dead or Alive, I don't really care anymore," Kakuzu announced. He flitted up both arms, extending both of them to impale the Copy-nin, rock blocking his path of escape. Kakuzu grinned. Copy-nin braced for impact.

A second Copy-nin jumped into the crossfire, chirp of a thousand birds crackling all around them as electricity ran up his limbs. His attacked crumbled apart as he hadn't shifted into lightning style, couldn't absorb it as it shocked him to the core. Kakuzu yelled, prompting the chidori to diverge and convulse, changing form into two sharp, blue-tinted dogs.

 _"Raiton Charge,"_ Copy-nin 2 said, voice low and humourless.

The dogs charged, ringing in his ears and biting onto one leg each before disintegrating into his body. Kakuzu grimaced, taking in the charge of the dogs as he shifted elements and was able to absorb the attack. The smell of smouldering ground and smoke wafted about like a miasma, filling his lungs.

The first Copy-nin, the humorous one, walked out of the debris only mildly scathed.

The second Copy-nin, the dead-inside one, shook the sparks off his gloved hands, scattering the overcharged power and huffing slightly.

The fist Copy-nin turned to the second one.

"Kakashi," he greeted.

The second Copy-nin bowed to the first. "Kakashi."

* * *

Did…did he have to bow to her in this state?

Even when she was pretending to be Kakashi next to Kakashi, she was somehow the superior Kakashi of them both. Kushina sighed internally.

"Not a shadow clone, not a genjutsu. You got played like a fiddle by _henge_ jutsu," Kushina-Kakashi politely informed him.

 _"Henge jutsu,"_ Kakashi-Kakashi repeated in the same manner of voice. "The same henge jutsu I used to impress academy examiners when I graduated."

"I was five," Kushina added for him, smiling proudly. Kakashi lifted his brows in jest.

There was only one Copy-nin. Out of the two before Kakuzu, one had lightning and sharingan; the other, intense strength and terrible comebacks. But for a time in his life starting from tonight to tonight, Kakuzu didn't care about the money anymore. Kakuzu pulled off his navy top, revealing the scars and stitches that held his body together and stopped his entrails from leaking out.

Kakashi and Kakashi reacted differently for a moment — one squinting in disgust as the other's eyes widened in confusion. (Kushina was disgusted, _ew;_ and Kakashi, baffled, not in a good way.)

Kakuzu turned around. Four masks — each of which hailed from different nation's black ops, including one of Konoha's — were stitched into his back. "I've always deemed myself a professional when it comes to being a mercenary," he said, back turned and humourless. "To collect a bounty, you need at least minimal proof to fit the identification criteria. Or _any old chunin fool_ could cut off his own ear and present it as the Sand's missing kage!"

Kakashi stood his ground. There was something about the masks now, something beneath the man's skin that was churning and moving not unlike the tendrils in his arms. Like parasites burrowing beneath, ready to squirm its way out. His back began to pulse and push and tug, each stitch loosening from the seams. Threads began to pop and snap in procession.

The other Kakashi flinched, feeling something akin to multiple people's chakras, but that wasn't possible. There were only three people and yet…

 ** _More than one heartbeat._**

"More than one heartbeat," she echoed aloud.

"Heartbeat?" Kakashi said. He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. We can take him down if we confuse him with our abilities. First, we observe what he's got lodged in his back. Tire him out. Then attack accordingly."

Kakuzu flit a hand into the air, still trying to make his point. "Because guess what?" he said gruffly. "Bodies and faces that look like either they've been stir-fried or spit-roasted aren't all that lucrative on the black market. 'Alive' gets you more dough than dead. Easy to identify."

It occurred to them both that keeping an intact body and face was more important than ending the fight quickly for Kakauzu. _Who was being played in reality?_ If he'd wanted them dead from the start, he'd have done it without complications. But now that restriction was off. Kakashi swallowed, jaw clenching.

"Ive got to meet standards and regulation for bounty money," Kakuzu slurred, "On the free market, it's simple demand and supply."

"Aw. Poor sweet sugar gumdrops," Kushina cooed in her talk-back reflex, and kakashi wished she wouldn't make that keening sound with his voice and face.

Two ghoul-like creatures slithered from the stitches, manifesting into two large, black creatures headed by the white masks. The body parts rearranged and closed the holes in his back as Kakuzu chuckled, back turned on them both.

The heartbeats diverged before Kushina's senses.

 ** _The kid's going to die._**

"No he kami-fucking isn't."

Kakashi flinched in her direction, blinking once.

"Hn, Kakashi," she started, rolling up her sleeves, "thing is, that plan of yours needs a little tweaking. He has about five hearts, no amount of running around is going to tire that amount of aerobic respiration. He has… _things_ stored in his back and they—"

Kakashi jolted sideways, tackling the mirror image of himself into the ground and rolling once so that he lay on top. A blast of a wind jutsu funnelled over their heads, creating a vacuum where it was hard to breathe, hard to hear anything as the pressure quashed around them, making their ears ring. Kushina put her hands to her ears, wincing as she opened her mouth. And she forgot there was a stretch of mask across her mouth, the effect of mushing her lips apart felt like she was suffocating.

It was right. Kakashi, still trying to shield her from above, was going to die here.

Too many things happened in the same moment, and yet it still felt like frames were missing as the chain of events shot forward, out of her comprehension.

Henge jutsu faltered, broken apart by her thoughts changing like lightning striking. The glint of a kunai caught her eye as Kakashi crookedly threw it in the stream of the tornado. It was a peculiar move that she couldn't compute in the moment. Now the air heated up as firelight blossomed from ahead.

The second monstrous thing that had clawed from Kakuzu's back had ignited the wind jutsu with fire. Then, her power pulled apart, a gush of something strong and familiar from within wreathing her, rushing to her protection in the instant. The entire atmosphere changed just a easily as blinking an eye. Wind jutsu, combined with fire jutsu, was directed right before them. Then it was not.

Kushina was lying on the floor. And then she was not.

 _What?_

 ** _Moved._**

Kushina blinked. The Nine-tail's power receded again, immediately dimming as she was out of danger. _"Kakashi has space-time ninjutsu?"_ she whispered incredulously as she stumbled from the too-sudden surge of power. She felt dizzy from it.

"You have space-time ninjutsu?" she said to Kakashi, trying not to talk to herself. She had landed a way away from Kakuzu and his furry shadow animal goonies (she could hear the destruction still happening somewhere in the distance). Eyes adjusting to the dark again, she looked around. Her heart pierced in her chest, and it felt like getting impaled. Maybe getting impaled wouldn't even have hurt as much as this — she'd been impaled before.

"Kakashi?"

She jumped to her feet, wobbling as she fumbled around her surroundings, kicking into a downed log to check, just in case. There was nothing around her. It didn't seem like there was anything around her for miles. Except for Kakuzu and his living, jutsu-welding hearts. Romping around unbridled.

"Kakashi?!"

Kushina froze. The kunai Kakashi had thrown into the wind-jutsu's stream was wedged into the ground right where she'd gotten up from. It wasn't the standard issue, mass-produced Konoha model that everybody knew. It was in pristine condition, shiny and chrome even in this dark. It was a tri-blade kunai.

Panic swayed in her chest, swaying her from side to side as bile rose in her throat, pushing up until the taste spilled into her mouth. Kushina doubled over. Hands grazing the ground, she began to retch and splutter convulsively, ribcage heaving up-down. She emptied her stomach onto the earth.

"HAAH — _you_ — _bleeding_ —" She hacked a bit more, holding onto her centre. Kushina spluttered, bitter saliva stuck to the back of her throat.

… _Idiot_ , she finished in her head.

Then Kushina ripped off her flak jacket, turning it around. There it was, on the side of it under the shoulder pads, the jutsu-insignia that had flung her away into some far off no-man's-land. She buckled again, throwing the jacket aside. It was really a taste of her own medicine. She'd done the exact same thing to Gin and Kiharu way back when _(how long ago was that now?)._

* * *

 _A memory:_

 _Minato paced the length of their tent, thumbing his chin like a tired old man._

 _"Stop that," Kushina yawned, "it makes you look like a tired old man."_

 _"Nnnnn." Minato sat down, donking his forehead on her shoulder. "What's wrong with looking like a tired old man? The Third is always a tired old man."_

 _"Why don't you come back and do that when you're Hokage, then?"_

 _"I don't know what to get Kakashi for his promotion present."_

 _Kushina's lips parted. Then she frowned, and sighed. "Making jonin during a campaign. How like the state of things, it is."_

 _Minato got up again, becoming serious. "Well I'm not going to let this go unnoticed. His birthday went pass without a mention when I wasn't there!"_

 _Kushina sighed harder, much like an old woman, and thought earnestly. "How about something useful?" She pulled one of his specialised kunai from his pouch. "Something to keep him safe?"_

 _Minato stopped in his track, impressed, eyes scrunching in concentration."That's the best goddamned idea you ever came up with, Kushina."_

* * *

 _"You,"_ she started, hands balling into trembling fists.

"YOU!" she yelled into the sky.

 ** _Blaming me?_**

" _More than one heart_ wasn't going to do anything to help!"

 ** _It's not like I knew he was going to transport you._**

Kushina gasped, still panting from her heaving body. "You let this happen! He's just a — he going to…"

She fumbled, and with one more foot forward, stepped into somewhere darker than the dark, heard water splash as her feet hit hard ground, though didn't feel it, not really. The walls stretched on forever and ever. Kushina closed her eyes. The world still existed outside when she closed them, but she was far away. She grit her teeth, stopping them from chattering.

 ** _You bought this on yourself. I'm not guilty._**

Kushina opened her eyes. The nothingness was replaced with a large, golden gate, reaching so far up she could never see the top. She could never guess how high it went, never see where it ended. Maybe it never did end. Kushina walked closer, feeling the resistance of the water but not the wetness against her skin.

 **"All the chances you have to humour me, and you choose now?"**

Kushina peered up the great prison. From behind the gates, a large creature moved, creaking the walls around her and changing how the air she breathed felt. It was too colossal, too ferocious. From the darkness, a creature loomed into view. He peeled from what couldn't be seen, to what could be seen.

 ** _"Why?"_**

"Why? Why else?" she shot back, folding her arms. "You were going to shove power at me regardless, why not?"

The Nine Tails squinted. Then, he opened his mouth, revealing a jagged, toothy grin. " **You think I shove power at you every time you're about to come to your demise? That's not how it goes between us."**

"I know, because I've hardly come to a number of near-demises."

 **"You draw on my power when your emotions are strong enough. Or I gift them to you. As a little token of appreciation."**

"You just want a chance to get to fight! You don't really care about who lives or dies!"

 **"That may be. But you still don't come here often enough,"** he grinned, blinking a colossal eye. **"I'm bored. And your choices are infuriating."**

"So why do you have to be so god-damned cryptic?! Then? Just say that we're being followed by a psychopath and then go _'Hey Kushina, maybe you should pull out each of his hearts before they leave his body,'_ you know?!" She huffed, wincing at her own comment that made no sense.

 **"I only help you where it damn well pleases me,"** the Nine Tails said dismissively. " **And it's not as if I can see everything from in here. I see and feel glimpses. I see things that go unnoticed to you. If you'll let me out more often—"**

"Shut up right there."

So that was his game. Don't help where it matters, pretend to help where it didn't. Help where it was fun, don't help when he didn't care for it. Force her into latching onto his powers so that she'll eventually let out his real form for a test run. Kushina fumed, fingers cracking as put them into fists again.

"You realised I didn't even call you when I was getting ganged-up upon by Iwa ninja."

 **"Irrelevant. Your call, not mine."**

"Because you're too dangerous, Nine Tails," she said exasperatedly.

Nine Tails's eyes narrowed again, end of his lip curling downwards. **"I don't know where this conversation is going,"** he said, a growl beneath his tone, **"Didn't you come here to beg for my powers?"**

Kushina took in a breath. "I don't have to beg you."

 **"You can't command me, either."**

Kushina rolled her eyes. "I was just going to ask politely. We didn't need all the discourse."

The Nine Tails ignored the fact that she landed here to shout at him. **"You don't even use me during the war. To cut down those Iwa-nin. Sniff out the fast one."**

Freezing on the spot, Kushina shook her head, eyes squinting in accusation. "You…can do that? Sniff out Minato?"

 **"Am I a dog? No. I was fucking with you."**

Kushina scoffed.

 **"…you're really going to do this for one little blimp?"**

But Kushina nodded once, sure and resolute.

 **"What's his name again?"**

"Kakashi. God."

 **"This kid better fucking turn out to be a saviour of the fucking world. The way you want to help him."**

"Don't be an idiot. If I had my way, he'd retire and run around with academy kids as a career."

 **"Hmph."**

"It's not like it matters to you," Kushina waved. "As long as it's a fight, and one you'll enjoy, it's enough isn't it? And there's no one around and one sure target."

Kushina reached down, lifting up her shirt to reveal the seal on her stomach. "You try anything, and we both get sealed inside this body and I throw away the key."

 **"You'll seal yourself just to push me down? Join me on the other side of this gilded cage?"** the Nine Tails remarked, space between his eyes creasing and folding. His laugh rumbled the walls and rippled the water. **"Ah** ** _ahaha ha_** **ha — Kushina, you know nothing but to go all out."**

Kushina huffed. "Glad to please you," she said.

* * *

Notes

Prescripto13 - I know any Akatsuki-to-be would wreck Kakashi! But luckily this is Kakuzu who likes his money. So he was mostly safe since Kakuzu didn't want to damage the goods, you know?

tabjoy13 - Sorry about the slow update but hey, at least I got it out before the end of the year! Thanks for commenting!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!


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